


Parasite

by Rachel Smith Cobleigh (reveilles)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, Canon Compliant, Character of Faith, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, Mental Anguish, Mentions of Cancer, No Canon Knowledge Needed, Parasites, Supernatural Elements, Telepathy, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-05-30 05:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6411019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reveilles/pseuds/Rachel%20Smith%20Cobleigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1997 and Scully is weary, fighting her battle with cancer. Mulder, investigating alone, falls prey to a parasite that leaches energy from his mind, and now they must fight to save his sanity. A missing episode from Season 5, teeming with the UST we all revel in. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Assault

PARASITE

An _X-Files_ story

by Rachel Smith Cobleigh

* * *

_parasite (par'e-sit) [Gr. parasitos] 1. A plant or animal which lives upon or within another living organism at whose expense it obtains some advantage. See symbiosis. 2. The smaller, less complete component of asymmetrical conjoined twins, which is attached to and dependent on the autosite. [Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, (London: W. B. Saunders Co.), 1994]_

* * *

_1_

Mulder pulled his blue Ford Taurus up to the curb and cut the engine. He sat back against the seat for a moment and closed his eyes, letting the fatigue of the five previous days finally catch up with him. His T-shirt clung to his skin—it was warm and sticky in Washington D.C., and had been for the past week. Summertime in the nation's capital was usually cooler, but a heat wave was hanging in the air, waiting for the Atlantic to blow in a fresh breeze. The weathermen were predicting another weekend of the heat before things cooled off.

He pulled the keys out of the ignition and reached across the seat for his holster and his leather jacket, gathering the hot folds under his arm as he pushed the door open. The sun glared down on him, and he could feel beads of sweat trickling through his hair, making his scalp itch. He stepped out slowly, feeling old and overheated, wishing he could just peel his jeans off and run up the apartment steps in his boxers.

He smiled to himself as he pushed the car door shut and moved slowly around to go up the walk, imagining his partner's face if she drove up and saw him doing something that undignified. FBI Special Agent Dana Scully would probably not be amused. He glanced around the quiet street—everyone else was inside, keeping cool.

Special Agent Fox Mulder had been investigating an X-File—unofficially. He'd gotten a lead on a possible downed UFO, and had followed it to the mountains of Virginia. Unfortunately, he'd found nothing, and he knew Scully wouldn't be all that happy when she saw him, because he'd ditched her again. _It's for her own good,_ he told himself, but it didn't banish the nagging guilt. He knew she deserved better than that, but he felt helpless in the face of her cancer diagnosis.

As he turned up the sidewalk, he caught sight of her car parked farther down the street. He stopped for a second and frowned at it, shading his eyes from the sun's glare. _What's she doing here?_

He sighed. He had turned off his cell phone while he was in Virginia for two reasons: he didn't want its shrill beeping to interfere in any delicate situations, and he didn't want Scully coming after him. Well, now that she was here, he might as well face the music. He turned back to the apartment building and walked up the sidewalk, hoping to finish the argument quickly, so he could take a shower.

* * *

When Mulder pushed his apartment door open, he frowned. The living room was strangely dark, given the bright sunlight outside. It was also odd for the lights to be out, if Scully were inside.

"Scully?" he called out, moving his hand up to flip the light switch on. He stopped short, frozen for a moment. Scully was seated on his sofa, silent, her profile outlined by the light in the window behind her. He could only see part of her figure; the rest was blocked by the shadowed shapes of three men—boys, actually. She sat in an eerie, motionless silence, and as his eyes adjusted to the strange darkness of his apartment, he let his hand drop to his side. Mulder took a step forward.

"Scully?"

She still didn't respond.

He moved closer, edging around the nearest boy, a young teen. The three figures were standing in a semicircle around his partner, staring at her with an unblinking focus. A chill crawled over his skin despite the warm, stagnant air in the room. As he moved to view Scully unobstructed, he stole a sideways glance at the nearest boy—and stopped with a sharp inhalation.

_He lives down the hall—46! What's his name...?_

The boy's eyes were dark, his pupils dilated in the low light.

"Hey...Jeremy? What are you all doing in my apartment?"

No one answered, so Mulder finally looked down at his partner's face—

_Her eyes were gone._

Her beautiful face, pale and pristine, was silent and unmoving... _without eyes._

His mind reeled in horror and he suddenly couldn't draw in a breath. He stared, unable to look away, feeling as though he were being suffocated by the nightmare.

The whole scene was surreal and he shuddered, abruptly angry. He forced air into his lungs with a growl. He was sick of suffering sleepless nights from these vivid, gruesome dreams!

This wasn't a dream, though. His leather jacket was still hot on his arm, the weight of his 9mm still rested in his palm, and he could hear Scully's breathing. It sounded forced for some reason, and his mind took a sharp turn. As quickly as he had become angry, his anger dropped away and fear took its place.

He shoved his way around the nearest boy and dropped to a crouch next to his partner, his knees coming to rest against the sofa's edge. Reaching up, he grabbed her shoulders as he fought horror and revulsion at the sight of her face. He squeezed her arms through her business suit, shaking her forcefully, desperately.

"Scully! Scully, wake up! C'mon!"

He saw her eyes—or sockets—suddenly begin to mist, a swirl of tiny pixels that abruptly swam into view and coalesced into solid eyeballs, pupils dark and dilated. His stunned mind didn't have time to process the unbelievable transformation because her arms suddenly flew up, knocking his trembling hands loose. As he lost his balance, she lifted one hand and viciously backhanded him to the floor. Too shocked to defend himself, he didn't break his fall, and the back of his head crashed against the edge of his oak coffee table, making him cry out. Sparks exploded across his field of vision.

Lying on the floor, he tilted his head up slightly, the back of his skull starting to pound.

"Scully?" he croaked, trying to see her through the black spots dotting his vision.

She looked down at him for a moment, her cool blue eyes impassive. Then she made a small hand motion and stood up.

Mulder suddenly felt several hands grab his hair and shirt and haul him up.

"Ow! Hey!" he cried. "What are you—? Scully!"

He struggled to see what she was doing, but she simply walked past him without a backwards glance. His view was blocked by the three boys dragging him across the room. _His gun—he'd dropped his gun!_ He twisted in their grasp, trying to free himself.

The boys let go of his hair and clothing and he fell heavily to the floor, letting out a cry of pain. His whole head started pounding and he winced, trying to get his bearings.

Suddenly, a foot came out of the darkness and connected with his stomach, knocking out his breath and sending waves of nauseating pain through him. He could feel bile rising in his throat and tried to cough, but a kick from behind sent excruciating pain into his kidneys and he convulsed backward.

"Scully...wait...!" he gasped, reaching out. Another kick. He curled forward, trying to protect his stomach, and groaned, half-unconscious. A fist grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head up, then slammed it back down onto the floor. Darkness started to cover him, but he continued fighting, trying to roll over, to move, to block the attacks. He couldn't prevent them all, though. Too many kicks and blows continued to rain down, fists and feet pounding, unrelenting, until he finally succumbed to the blackness.

* * *

Mulder walked into his kitchen and tossed his leather jacket onto the back of a nearby chair. He wandered over to the fridge and opened the door to look inside. Grabbing a carton of milk, he took a couple of gulps and glanced around the shelves, trying to think of something to make for dinner. _Cold Chinese. Yuck._ He wondered vaguely how long it had been in there. Grimacing, he tossed the carton back over his head, where it bounced against the wall and fell neatly into the trash bin. There were some carrots in the vegetable drawer and a package of grated cheese on the top shelf of the door. He crouched down, putting the milk carton on the floor, and went in search of some ham or sausage, maybe a pepper, somewhere in the recesses of his fridge.

 _Aha! Sliced ham!_ He picked out various items from the back of his refrigerator, his trepidation growing with each old carton or lump he found. _What_ is _some of this stuff?_

After several minutes, he managed to find enough to make an interesting omelet, and carried it all to the kitchen table. Grabbing the carton of eggs, he found a bowl in a cupboard and rummaged in the drawer for the whisk.

One by one, he cracked the eggs on the side of the bowl and dropped them in. As he picked up the last egg, he felt something move inside it. Frowning, he paused, but it lay still in his grasp. He sighed and shook his head. _Must have been my overworked imagination._

With a self-deprecating smirk, he held the egg to the side of the metal bowl and cracked it open, but no egg whites fell out. He lifted up the egg halves to see inside—

 _A red snake! White teeth!_ It leapt up at him, and he yelled and jumped back, dropping the eggshell halves on the floor, where they shattered.

He blinked. _Eggs don't shatter._

The red snake hissed, its thin tongue flicking out, and twisted towards him. He was suddenly horrified to realize that he wasn't wearing any shoes or socks, and the snake was streaking towards him! He grabbed at the whisk, whacking wildly at the snake until he finally hit its head, stunning it. As he picked it up, it squirmed madly, trying to bite his hand, and he flung it into the trash. He watched in horror as it thrashed at the plastic sides of the bin, threatening to break out—

* * *

Mulder woke up curled in a tight ball on the floor, and he blinked slowly in the low light. Why was he sleeping on the floor? He hadn't been _that_ tired. His skin itched as a vague memory of the desire for a shower trickled in, and he realized how hot and sticky he felt. He made a move to get up, but collapsed a second later as pain flooded through him and his head began to pound.

"Uuhhh...feel like I've just been mugged," he muttered. "That's what you get for sleeping on the floor, G-man."

He made another move to sit up, grimacing as the pounding increased, then decided to lie back for a second and close his eyes instead. There was a dull ache in his cheek, and he searched his memory for the reason why. A sudden image of Scully's hand flying towards him flashed into view, and then everything else swam into place in painstaking detail, but none of it made any sense.

He groaned. _Just another bad dream. Get up, get up, get up..._

Feeling old and heavy, he forced himself to sit up and tried to push the pain away. _Scully would never hit me—shoot me, maybe..._

He tried to pull out a vague memory as to why he was _really_ lying on the floor, aching all over, but nothing new occurred to him. The back of his neck hurt, and it felt oddly cold and stiff. He put his hand up, meaning to wipe away the sweat, but stopped short as his fingers touched something dried and hard on his skin. He scratched it, then winced at a sudden sharp tear of pain. Pulling his fingers away, he stared in horror at the blood clinging to them.

_What...?_

Groaning, he pushed himself to a standing position, aching in every joint, sharp pains shooting up his back and making his headache increase tenfold. He swayed slightly and fought to remain standing, to see through the haze covering his eyes and brain. Stumbling forward, he caught his palm on the wall to keep his balance, but the forceful contact sent pain shooting up his arm. After pausing a moment to take a few deep breaths and wait for the wave of pain to subside, he pushed himself off the wall and found his way to the bathroom. Flipping the light on, he braced his hands on the sink and squinted at the bathroom mirror.

 _Ooh, you look great, Spooky_.

A fresh, angry bruise covered his right cheek, and assorted cuts and scrapes adorned his face. Dried, dark brown blood covered the sides of his neck and streaked down his sweat-stiffened T-shirt. Reaching down, he twisted the faucet and hot water splashed into the sink.

_Gotta clean up, take a shower, call Scully..._

Maybe she would know what had happened to him. Had he been mugged and stumbled home, nearly unconscious? A flash of her impassive face came again, and he pushed it roughly away.

_Bad dream, resulting from some outside trauma..._

He ran his hand under the water, not caring how hot it was, then bent down gingerly to wash his face and neck. As the crusts came off, washing into the clean water of the sink, they stained the white sides a dull pink. He closed his eyes and continued to wash the dried pieces off until he touched wet, fresh blood. Starting to feel lightheaded, he straightened up again. It seemed that he had a cut on the back of his head, and that it had reopened. He started to twist to get a better look at it in the mirror, but stopped with a groan when his body protested loudly.

_Gotta call Scully..._

No, he didn't want to do that. He was a grown man, he could take care of himself. Besides, he didn't know what time it was, and he didn't want to wake her up. She lived forty minutes away, in Annapolis, and he didn't want to ask her drive all the way over to put a Band-Aid on a cut. Resolving to clean himself up, he pressed his fingers against the cut, opened his medicine cabinet, and pulled out the box of Band-Aids that held gauze and tape. Fumbling to open the box, he knocked it off the edge of the sink and swore. He dropped to the floor to pick up the box and his head responded with another wave of pain.

He waited a moment, steadying himself against the toilet, then rose slowly, lowered the toilet seat cover, and sat on it, the box of Band-Aids in one hand and his other hand pressed to the back of his head. He squinted down at the box to pull out a gauze pad and some tape, but had to relax his face—his bruised cheek throbbed.

After a couple of excruciating minutes, he managed to pull the gauze tight over the cut and tape it securely. He pushed himself up and looked in the mirror again. He was a sorry picture, and he smiled slightly—though it quickly turned into a grimace. Sighing, he reached down to peel off his sweat- and blood-stained T-shirt. Every muscle in his torso and arms ached or screamed as he struggled to pull off the shirt without catching it on the gauze on his neck.

As he pulled the shirt over his head and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he was horrified to discover even more bruises on his stomach and sides. He twisted slowly around, but despite being unable to turn his head far enough to see his back, he knew there were angry bruises there, too. The memory of a painful kick to his kidneys sprang up, and he groaned, trying to push it away.

_Maybe I crawled out of a car wreck without realizing it...mind reacted with a dream..._

Shaking his head in disgust, he threw the T-shirt into a corner of the bathroom and immediately received a spike of pain up his arm in response. He turned on the shower with a sigh and gingerly undressed, wincing, before stepping into the stream. He hissed as the hot water hit the cuts and stung, but he eventually relaxed, letting the water run down his back and alleviate some of the aching. He was able to keep the gauze from coming undone; the surgical tape held it tightly in place. When the heat eventually became unbearable, he used the shower to cool off.

Fifteen minutes later, he stepped out and found a towel. Wrapping it around his waist, he walked slowly into the den and picked up the phone to dial Scully's number, listening as the phone rang nine times before he finally hung up. Her answering machine was off. That was odd. He glanced at the glowing clock in the corner: _6:29 a.m._ He frowned, then instantly regretted it when the bruise on his cheek began to throb again.

_Where is she?_

It was strange for his partner to be gone at this hour. And she was a light sleeper; if the phone rang, she would always pick it up.

A feeling of dread crept into his chest. _What if she was attacked, too?_

There was a sudden knock on the door and he twisted around, his hand still on the phone. He quietly laid the receiver down. _Where was his gun?_ In his leather jacket, right. _Where—ah_. It was beside the sofa.

He ignored the ache in his muscles, crouching down as he reached for his 9mm. Another knock. Standing up straight, he pointed the gun at the door, dismayed to find his hands shaking slightly.

"Who—" his voice was rough, so he stopped, cleared his throat. "Who is it?"

"Skinner," came the muffled reply.

Mulder narrowed his eyes, ignoring the sting of the scrapes on his forehead. He braced his arms and did his best to steady his aching legs.

"The door is unlocked," he called. "Come in slowly, with your hands where I can see them, then close the door behind you."

"Mulder, what is thi—"

"Just do it!"

"Okay, okay... I'm going to count to three, then come in. Relax."

"I _am_ relaxed."

Mulder heard a muffled, low-voiced comment in response to that. After a moment, Skinner began to count.

"One. Two. Three."

The doorknob twisted, and a crack of dim light shone in from the hallway. It slowly widened, and Mulder watched as Assistant Director Walter Skinner's well-built outline edged in, hands splayed out. Skinner came in all the way, then pushed the door shut behind him. He put his hands up, searching for Mulder in the darkness of the apartment.

"Mulder? I'm not here to kill you. You can put that away."

"Prove it."

"Prove what? Why is this place always so dark?" Skinner started to lower his hands and move towards Mulder.

"Don't move."

Skinner sighed. "Agent Mulder, I order you to lower your weapon and let me explain."

"You explain first."

"After all this time, why don't you trust me?"

Mulder was silent.

Skinner gave an impatient sigh. "All right. I came here looking for you because my...sources said you were back in town, but when I tried to call you, you didn't answer either of your phones."

"What did you want from me? Are you planning on dropping the book on me for taking off again?"

"No." The older man's voice became quiet, softer. "Mulder... I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Agent Scully is..."

Mulder drew in a sharp breath.

"...missing. Her neighbors reported some strange sounds early last night, and when the local PD went to check it out, she was gone. When I found out, I immediately went over there. Her place looks fine, but she's disappeared without a trace. I need your help to find her."

Mulder released his pent-up breath as the ache in his body returned in full force. He let the gun drop to his side, his arms sagging. As Skinner lowered his own hands, Mulder sank back onto the desk behind him with a soft groan and laid the gun down. He started to drop his head, then pulled it up again—painfully—when the back of his neck became tight and sharp.

Skinner turned on the lights in the apartment and saw Mulder wince, squeezing his eyes shut. The impatient words Skinner had been about to say died on his lips when he caught sight of Mulder's weary form leaning against the desk, partially silhouetted by the rising sun behind him.

Skinner hadn't slept all night after he'd found out about Scully's disappearance, and his own arm sagged under the weight of his suit jacket. It was beginning to get warmer after the cold of the night, so he laid the jacket on a nearby chair as he crossed the room. Something about the way Mulder was watching his movements without getting up from the desk—he was wearing only a towel, really—made Skinner take a closer look at him. Even with the lights on, the apartment seemed dim. He saw the dark bruise on Mulder's cheek and frowned, his gaze quickly taking in the other scrapes and the bruises covering much of the younger man's body.

"What happened to you?"

Mulder closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, grimacing at the pain the small movement caused.

"I don't know," he whispered.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I woke up...on the floor..." he trailed off. Skinner eyed him silently for a moment. He caught sight of the bandage taped to the back of Mulder's neck and saw blood seeping under the already-dark gauze pad. When he moved over to look at it, Mulder opened his eyes.

"It's bleeding," Skinner observed.

Mulder reached up and touched his neck gingerly, feeling the gauze pad.

"You need to get that looked at."

Mulder shook his head, grimaced. "I'll be fine."

Skinner frowned, reaching up to pull back the tape, but Mulder shied away from him.

"No, sir."

"Hold still. It's bleeding, and I want to look at it."

"Sir—"

"Don't argue with me," Skinner barked, and Mulder stilled. "Hold on, this might hurt—"

"Just add it to the list," Mulder replied.

Skinner took hold of the edge of the tape and yanked, pulling it off halfway. Mulder sucked in a quick breath, then smirked.

"What's the diagnosis, Dr. Skinner?"

Skinner frowned as he eyed the split at the base of Mulder's skull. Dried blood crusted the surrounding skin, and fresh blood was working its way out. Skinner pulled the pad back down and reapplied the tape.

"You need stitches."

"I was hoping you wouldn't say that." Mulder grimaced.

"Can you walk? Get dressed. I'm taking you to get that sewn up." Skinner reached out to take Mulder's arm, but Mulder pulled back.

"I'm fine. Give me a few minutes."

"Fine. I'll wait here until you're ready."

Mulder nodded with a wince and pushed himself up from the edge of the desk. He moved slowly, looking as though he were an old man, and walked around the corner.

Skinner stood still for a moment, glancing around the small apartment.

 _Mulder could afford better than this,_ Skinner thought, his gaze moving over the worn furniture and dim lighting. A leather jacket lay in a heap on the floor at the edge of the sofa, and the coffee table was pushed sideways, skewed. It even had coffee stains all over the edge— _Wait a second. Coffee doesn't look like that._

Skinner moved over to the edge of the table and squatted down for a closer look. The dark reddish-brown splotch on the table's edge wasn't coffee, it was blood. Probably Mulder's. Skinner looked around the scene, at the floor, at the spots and swipes of reddish-brown on the thin rug. He frowned at the coffee table, thinking, and heard a small crash in the other room.

"Everything all right?" he called.

"Yes, sir," came the answer, after several seconds. Skinner looked back at the floor, studying the markings. _He didn't stumble in here, hurt,_ he suddenly realized. _He was beaten here._ Anger flooded through him as he considered it. _And whoever did this is probably responsible for Scully, too! What did Mulder do to anger the Consortium now? Where has he been for the past five days? Why did they only beat him, leaving him alive?_

He looked up as Mulder came into the room, wearing dark sweatpants and a sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves.

"You ready?"

"Yeah," Mulder replied, slowly moving over to the sofa. He winced as he bent to start rummaging in the pockets of the leather jacket. Skinner straightened and stood up.

"You really don't remember what happened here, to you?"

Mulder paused a second. "I'm not exactly sure, sir."

With a curt nod, Skinner started past him. "Maybe it'll come back to you in the hospital. Am I allowed to ask where you've been for the past several days?"

Mulder sighed, pushing his wallet, keys, and FBI ID into his baggy pockets.

"Wandering aimlessly around southern Virginia chasing a possible UFO sighting. Nothing happened."

He put his gun into the holster and handed it to Skinner. Frowning, the Assistant Director accepted it, then collected his suit jacket and tucked the gun beneath the folds. They walked out, silently locking the door behind them.

* * *

Mulder was sitting in a plush chair off to the side of one of the FBI crime labs, a phone up to his ear. He had changed into the spare suit he kept down in the basement office, sans tie. Twelve stitches and a butterfly bandage only allowed him to move his neck stiffly and precluded ties entirely, much to his delight—relatively speaking. He turned his head slightly as Skinner came over to the nearby desk and sat down on the edge.

"...yeah," Mulder continued. "I want an APB put out on a beige Chevy Acura, plate number TFX-359. Last seen in the Washington D.C. area yesterday afternoon, about four p.m."

Mulder looked up as Skinner put down a sheet in front of him. One quick glance at it made his eyes widen.

"Uh, Danny—hey, cancel that. We've found it already... Yeah, you too. Bye."

Mulder put the phone back in its cradle, and looked down at the sheet.

"I placed that call while you were getting your stitches," Skinner explained. "Her car's already been spotted at the Gregson Mental Health Center in Linsenton, half an hour outside of D.C."

"Mental Health Center?" Mulder got to his feet, resisting the answering aches. "I'm going down there." He reached back to pick up his suit jacket.

Skinner frowned and stood up beside him. "I don't think you're well enough for field work, Mulder."

"Sir, I can't just sit behind a desk all day, not with Scully missing."

Skinner finally nodded, his mouth pressed into a flat line. "I'm going to send a few men down with you."

"No, sir. I think it will be easier to keep the situation under control if we don't flood the Center with agents. If there even is a situation." Mulder paused. He had told Skinner earlier that Scully had been at his apartment, but that she had left, angry about something to do with his trip to Virginia. That was crock and he knew it, but he was concerned for her, and he didn't want her being chased down by half the Bureau. If she was in trouble, he would call in help; if she wasn't, she wouldn't appreciate a panic attack over her. He was hedging, not sure of his own memories, whether they were nightmare or reality. "I think she just went down to investigate an X-File, sir."

Skinner frowned. "I didn't receive a 302 from her requesting an assignment yesterday, and you know that she prefers not to work on them alone."

"Maybe it was a fresh lead, and she didn't have time to file."

Skinner considered that for a moment. He finally nodded, albeit with obvious reluctance.

"I'm sending Rutherson with you, just in case. Don't try anything heroic, Agent Mulder. If you encounter any trouble, contact us. Understood?"

"Yes sir."

 


	2. Finding Scully

_2_

An hour later, Mulder and Agent Rutherson pulled up to the Center in Mulder's Taurus. Rutherson hadn't been too keen on the idea of taking a taxi back to Mulder's apartment just to get the car, but Mulder had insisted on driving. He had enough experience with the unpredictability of X-Files investigations that he wasn't going out to find Scully in a random, untested motor pool car driven by a green field agent.

Mulder briefly closed his eyes as he turned off the engine. He thought he was doing a fair job of hiding his headache behind his sunglasses. At least the pain wasn't as bad as it had been, and the painkillers they'd given him at the hospital weren't too powerful; he was still feeling relatively alert.

He checked his 9mm, then slowly stepped out of the car and looked up at the four-story Center. Nothing seemed amiss, and Scully's car was parked nearby. Mulder locked his Taurus and strode across the parking lot, leaving Rutherson to follow behind.

As they neared the building, its white-lettered GREGSON MENTAL HEALTH CENTER looming above their heads, a feeling of dread seated itself in Mulder's chest. What would he find inside? He took a deep breath, pausing to steady himself.

_What really happened in my apartment?_

Rutherson continued on past him, so, frowning, Mulder pushed the thought away.

The two agents stalked into the lobby, badges held up.

Rutherson waved a grainy, blown-up version of Scully's Bureau ID mug shot in the air. "Special Agent Dan Rutherson, FBI. Have you seen this young woman—she's about 5'2"—" Rutherson held up his hand in a rough approximation of Scully's height. "—enter this building today?"

The stunned receptionist could only shake her head, mouth open. Mulder tucked his sunglasses away as he approached the desk, and fought the slight quaver in his voice.

"Has anyone of that description been checked into or checked themselves into this facility recently?"

The receptionist blinked. "Ah, I—I don't know. I've only been here for about an hour. My shift started at three. Are you here about the murder?"

"What murder?" Mulder asked sharply.

"I don't know," the receptionist said with a shrug. "Some old janitor died a couple nights ago. The police already declared the area clear."

"What did he die of?"

"Beats me," the woman answered. "Some people thought it was the ghosts, but it sounds more like a zombie story to me." She snorted.

"The ghosts?" Mulder repeated, and Rutherson rolled his eyes with an impatient sigh.

"Where was the crime scene?" Rutherson asked.

"Through those doors, take the second hallway on the left," she answered, pointing. "You can't miss it. There's yellow tape all over the door."

With barely a glance back at Mulder, Rutherson started off in the direction of the wing opposite the desk.

"What ghosts?" Mulder asked, when the other agent was out of earshot.

"Oh, doors creaking, stuff moving around the nurses' stations when no one is there, unexplained voices in the stairwell. That kind of thing." The woman shrugged and smiled. "It's an old building. People imagine things when the nights are long."

"Which stairwell?" Mulder asked. The receptionist pointed, smirking.

Mulder moved that way as he spotted the indicated door. Once inside the stairwell, he paused a moment, but it looked perfectly ordinary, if a bit rundown. He quickly ascended the stairs, climbing all the way to the fourth floor. He would work his way down from the top. He fought his body's protests, moving as quickly as he could along the hallways, glancing in the doors. The Center was more of a hospital in this wing, with patients' rooms lining the halls. He showed his badge at the desk and to several orderlies, motioning them over to ask about Scully, but no one could recall seeing her.

As he moved down to the second floor, the knot of dread in his stomach increased, and he walked carefully along the hallway. Looking farther ahead, he could see the nurses behind the desk moving around—but too slowly, it seemed. He frowned, grimaced, his nostrils flaring as he continued walking. There was something _wrong_ with this floor. The place was too silent, too still. The hair on the back of his neck that wasn't covered by the butterfly bandage stood on end; a prickly feeling worked its way down his spine. The pain medication was wearing off, and he was beginning to feel all of his scrapes and bruises, back in full force.

He winced as the fabric of his clothing chafed at the scrapes, and he slowed his step. A dim, yellowish glow was coming from one of the rooms off to his right. As he neared the door, however, he felt sluggish, finding it increasingly difficult to move, as if the air had gained the consistency of molasses. He pushed against the feeling, a small part of his mind telling him that it would be a good idea to turn away and run.

_NO!_

It suddenly became easier to move.

He stalked up to the door, fighting a pressure that was reaching out to wrap its tendrils around his chest, and he slowly pushed the door inward. His mouth dropped open in surprise as he saw the interior of the room.

The warm glow was coming from two large windows set in the back wall. Off-white, filmy curtains hung on rods above the open windows, blowing gently in the afternoon breeze, flipping in and out lazily. A thick brown carpet covered the floor, and the walls were painted a warm off-white color, with picture frames hanging, tastefully decorating the walls. There was a doorway off to the right, leading into another room, which looked like a well-to-do family space, with nice furnishings and a plush sofa, also brown.

He stepped inside, leaving the door open a crack behind him. A beautiful dark wood dining room table stood directly in front of him, with eight women seated around it, all of their eyes fixed on him. There were place settings before each woman. He suddenly felt scrutinized, out of place. A woman sat at the end of the table closest to him, seeming to be about forty years in age, and large in build. The others in the room ranged from a young teenager to others closer in age to the first woman. Some had smaller frames, but all had large brown eyes.

Mulder realized he was holding his breath, completely shocked by the change in his surroundings, and he exhaled slowly. If he didn't still have the memory of just being in an antiseptically-clean hospital, he would have thought he had just walked into an evening meal at the house of an affluent family—of women. He frowned. Something about this room felt _wrong._

Suddenly, Scully came in from the adjoining room, a covered dish in her hands. He exhaled in relief and moved towards her, reaching for her.

"Scully!" he exclaimed. She walked by with the dish, a scowl suddenly appearing on her face. He pulled his hand back as she passed him and went to the table, putting the dish down on an intricate potholder. She straightened up to look at him, anger evident in her features.

"Scully...what...?" Mulder moved towards her again, still wary to touch her—she looked as if she might hit him again—but he was stopped by a hand on his arm. He looked down to see the first—and oldest, it seemed—woman looking up at him. He pulled his arm away from her grasp, angry.

"I want her back. What did you do to her?"

"Curious," the woman whispered, still staring at him. "You are able to fight us..."

Mulder looked back up at Scully, searching her face for some recognition. "Scully? Scully...Dana...it's me, Mulder. What are you doing here?"

She did not respond, although he could see anger flare in her eyes, which were a strange brilliant bluish-brown color. The women sitting near her put their hands on her arms, restraining her.

"Not yet, Dana, darling," the woman beside him murmured. "His time will come." The woman looked up at him. "You look familiar. We have seen you before."

"And he moves," the teenage girl said quietly, in awe.

Mulder's mouth pulled into a flat line. He was becoming angry, but he couldn't touch Scully, making him increasingly frustrated. This little show these...women...were putting on was wearing on his patience. The cold fist tightened in his chest, and a strange mixture of fear and anger crept into his mind.

"How can that be possible?" another woman asked, looking up at him.

"Let her go. Please," he said, mortified that his voice almost sounded as if he were begging. He looked back up at his partner's face, but was only greeted with a cold gaze. "Scully...?"

"She does not want to hear you," the oldest women said quietly. Mulder made a move towards Scully again, but the woman stood up and firmly took hold of his suit jacket's sleeve.

"Yes, she does!" Mulder growled. "Let her go!" He started to tug away from the woman's grasp, but the whole room wavered on the edges. Mulder blinked, disoriented. Everything solidified again.

All of the women were looking at him now, shock mixed with awe in their faces. He paused with a frown. A small mental note that the frown did not cause him any pain flitted through his mind, and he shivered, confused. His instincts screamed at him to flee, but he couldn't leave Scully.

The oldest woman pulled at his arm, her fist still holding his sleeve, and he turned towards her. She looked intently at him, her eyes boring into his skull, and suddenly he squeezed his eyes shut and gasped, feeling countless tiny twinges _everywhere_ at once inside his head. A moment later, the sensation disappeared, and he opened his eyes again, not in pain, but for some unexplainable reason, feeling violated.

"Very well, we will bargain with you, then," she announced, her mouth tugging up in a smile that was anything but friendly.

Mulder blinked, jerking his arm out of her grasp. "Deal with me?"

"Her release...for a small part of you."

He stepped back, fear and anger returning in full, but the woman stepped closer to him, the small smile growing on her face. It sent chills down his spine.

"Ahh, I can see why she thinks of you the way she does. You are quite...interesting."

Mulder's whole frame tensed, almost to the point of being in pain.

"What...what do you want from me?" he rasped, not sure why he was suddenly hoarse.

The woman gestured with that false smile, nodding towards the table and the other women.

"We crave only sustenance, which she provides," she replied, motioning to Scully. Mulder was silent, waiting for the woman to continue, and to regain his voice. He felt terribly exposed, naked in this place. Cold fingers curled around his chest.

"We are simple, our Sisterhood wants only to live."

"How can I do anything to further that?"

"You will provide much."

"Let her go. I want her back. I _need_ her back."

The woman nodded. "To live. Just as _we_ need her to live."

Mulder wrenched his mind from the scene, forcing himself to recall the surroundings outside this room.

"The doctors and nurses—"

"They do not provide what we need. They are prevented from entering this room. We need unsullied—" The woman suddenly cut off her words. She drew closer to him, her smile now a horrible combination of hunger and attraction, and he recoiled slightly. "For her. You let us take a small part, in return for her."

His anger flared, and he pulled himself to his full height to tower over the woman.

"I'm taking her out of here," he hissed, "and whatever warped needs you have, you'll have to suffer with. You can't stop me."

A look of displeasure crossed the woman's face.

"Very well. You take her from this room, and she will go with you. However, we will not release her. To all others, she will be normal. To you, she will not." The woman stepped up to him again, her eyes burning with a cold fire. She turned her head to look at Scully, who stood silently across the room. "You see the anger burning in her eyes. That is not our doing. _She_ is angry at you. For our purposes, we bring this anger to the surface, but it is real. She will come to hate you—I know not why. The reason is buried deep—" The woman cut herself off again, then looked back up at him.

"If she leaves, she will become Us, and you will be powerless to stop her. Whyever she hates you now, it will be exacerbated, and your partnership will be destroyed, though it is strong right now—" A flash of knowledge passed over the woman's face. "—ahh, but it is wavering because of her sickness. If you attempt to accuse her or us of anything, you will seem like you are...mentally unstable..." The woman's dark eyes glinted with an awful humor again. "...and you will be put into a hospital like this one—perhaps even here." The predatory smile re-appeared.

"I don't believe you," Mulder hissed through clenched teeth, and he leaned down to glare at her. "You're just trying to stall. What do you want from me, and why do you ask for my permission to take it? You took _her_ forcibly." He jutted his chin towards Scully without removing his gaze from the older woman, who raised her eyebrows slightly and stepped back.

"You..." she narrowed her eyes with a frown, "...are different. You have seen Us before?" Another woman at the table made a small sound, and the oldest woman's face cleared. "Ahhh, when she was brought in." The woman's eyes took on a slight mist as memories came. "You were the obstruction—the dark man."

"You mean when you took control of my partner and beat me," he growled.

The woman's attention returned to him. "Mm...we were looking for new life, a strong mind, and saw her, so it was a simple task to control the others to gain access to her."

"By others, you mean the teenagers."

"Yes. They were easily manipulated. She is strong enough to provide much sustenance, but you..." The woman trailed off with strange gleam in her eyes, and Mulder thought she looked distinctly hungry. "Is there an agreement?"

"To what?"

"We release her fully—in return for a small part of...you."

"Because I have seen you before, you cannot just take...whatever it is, without my consent?"

The woman nodded. "Also, you are too strong to take from without destroying the mind of your partner in the process."

A sudden clarity came to Mulder. "You're all connected to each other's minds."

"In an intricate web. We are the Sisterhood."

He stepped closer to the table of seated women, his gaze moving over their faces. "You need Scully to live—her mind is your source of energy." He spun to face the woman standing behind him. "You take mental energy—you're a collective parasite, living on the strength of others' minds."

She smiled, slowly, pleased with his insight. "Very good! You understand us better than anyone! Now you see why we cannot take from you without your consent. You are aware."

He was silent for a long moment. "Too much energy to take control of..." He stopped, frowned. "You said 'a part' of me—how can you live without also keeping me under whatever power you have used to trap Scully?"

"What we take will sustain us." The woman paused for a moment. "You have so much, so much more than we have ever seen before. If we were to take you now, you would be too much to control, and we would be destroyed. However," she sighed, "it is getting late. Will you agree to this for her release?"

Mulder straightened up, came near the woman. "How do I know that you won't just take me and not release Scully?"

"We give you our word."

"That's not good enough."

"You really have no choice, Fox Mulder." The woman blinked, an odd look crossing her face. "Curious name."

Mulder scowled at her.

"Do we have an agreement?"

"What will you take?"

"Only a small part of your mind. We will be sustained. You will not miss it..."

"When I leave this place, I will endeavor, with everything in my power, to stop you from doing this to anyone else."

"Doing what to anyone else?" The woman smiled innocently, although her eyes glittered with hunger and self-assurance. "Our time is short. Do we have an agreement? You will allow us?"

"Let Scully go first. I want to see her walk out, completely free."

"Very well," the woman said, making a small hand motion. The two women holding Scully's arms let go, and she suddenly blinked, reached down, and picked up her purse and briefcase from where they sat near the wall. They hadn't been there when Mulder had last looked at that spot. Scully turned to face him, her blue eyes clear and normal.

"Oh, Mulder, I'm glad you finally made it here, after taking off last week. Where did you go?" she asked calmly. When he didn't reply, she frowned, her eyes tired. "Hurry up. Why are you just standing there? I'll meet you at the elevator, all right?"

She walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind her. He could see the health center's hall outside, with its white walls and tiled floor, all that was normal beckoning to him. He could just walk out now.

"You refuse, and we take her back again. Your choice," the woman said behind him, her voice cold. He turned back to look at her. She regarded him for a long moment, hunger clear in her features.

He closed his eyes and nodded, barely.

His mind suddenly erupted in a long scream of pain, and he twisted in panic towards the door, stumbling. Against his will, his body arched back towards the table behind him and he fell heavily against it, struggling to right himself until his head was slammed down on its surface and he grunted, stunned. Tearing fingers and forked tongues licked at the edges of his experience, his being. Incredible, excruciating, white-hot, it seared through his mind, and he could do nothing except curl into himself to protect his exposed parts. No sound escaped his lips, and as soon as the searing flash had come, it was gone, leaving him sagged against one of the off-white walls, his hands convulsing against his temples. He forced his eyes open and the warm tones of the dining room swam into view, then shimmered.

Groaning, he pushed himself away from the wall, suddenly realizing that it was now painted a stark, hospital white.

"What...?" he gasped, swaying. He stumbled towards the door of the room and pulled it open, nearly losing his balance as he flung himself out into the hospital hallway. He turned slightly, trembling, his mind frozen in shock as he stared at the room he'd just been in. It was only a hospital room now, with white walls, bars on the curtainless windows, and eight women in wheelchairs, their bodies frozen in various twisted, aging positions, unmoving. All looked at least forty years old. Their eyes were blank, their faces expressionless. A single thin wooden table stood in the center of the room.

A body moved past him, walking into the room. A nurse. She was looking at him strangely, forming words, but no sound came from her lips.

A sudden wave of insane fear gripped him wildly, and he flung himself away from the door, nearly tripping over himself as he fled down the hall. He crashed into another nurse as he ran, then threw himself past her, towards the elevator. Scully was just stepping inside; she reached out and pressed the button for the ground floor, then turned towards him when he stumbled inside and sagged against the back wall. Her eyes widened in concern, and she dropped her briefcase as the elevator doors closed. He winced at the loud noise and squeezed his eyes shut; the light inside the elevator was too bright.

"Mulder! Mulder, what's wrong?" She reached up and took his wrists, tugging them gently to pull his hands away from his forehead. "Let me see, please." He relented, and dropped his arms, letting out a soft groan as the reminder of his injuries returned in full measure.

Scully looked up at her partner's face, suddenly shocked. She hadn't seen the dark bruise covering his right cheek before now, and she gasped, reaching up to touch it lightly. "Ssshh...! Mulder, what happened to you?"

Her partner looked down at her, his eyes bloodshot. He had a host of tiny cuts and abrasions around his face, and an odd, yellowish bruise spreading over his left temple. He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, grimacing.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Scully picked up her briefcase and took his elbow, supporting him slightly as he moved out of the elevator. She noticed a dark-clothed man standing in the lobby, chatting with the receptionist, and for the slightest of moments, she had the urge to suddenly take Mulder and run. As she neared the man, however, she realized he was an agent from the Missing Persons department—she'd worked with him on one or two occasions. Ruth something. He turned towards the two of them, and his face lit up.

"Oh, you found her! It's been almost two hours since I saw you last, Agent Mulder! The A.D. told me to follow your lead, but I was beginning to get worried. I was going to call back to the Bureau, but I thought maybe you were still looking... I searched all over the other side of the building, but no one had seen you!" The agent took in Mulder's slow walk and Scully's strained expression as he hurried over. "You two don't look so good."

"I'm fine," they both replied in unison.

Mulder let out a small, wry laugh and shook his head—then immediately grimaced. He glanced down at his bare wrist and frowned; it hadn't felt like 'almost two hours'...

"Hi again, Agent Scully." Rutherson flashed her a bright smile, then looked at Mulder, uncertain as to how he should proceed. Agent Scully was no longer a missing person, and she actually looked more able to take care of herself than the man that had been sent to find her.

She looked quite angry, in fact. Rutherson quickly moved ahead of them to open the lobby door as they stepped out into the late afternoon sun. He noticed the way the light gleamed on Scully's red hair, _almost glowing,_ he thought.

"Hello, Agent Rutherson," Scully replied, polite but distant as her eyes scanned the parking lot.

"Oh, I told you that you can call me 'Dan'," Rutherson said, grinning at her. "Boy, are we relieved to find you! The A.D. was very concerned. Were you here working on an X-File?"

Scully found what she was looking for and turned back to Rutherson with a frown. "I need a favor from you—"

"Anything," Rutherson agreed, sounding almost eager. Mulder looked up at that.

Scully continued without appearing to notice. "Would you take Agent Mulder's car back to his house, please, Agent Rutherson?"

Mulder moved his arm out of Scully grasp. "Scully, I'm—"

"—in no condition to drive a car. For once, will you stop arguing with me, for your own good?" Scully said sharply, shooting him an impatient look. Rutherson assumed an appropriately obedient posture, waiting. Mulder sighed.

Rutherson's eyes flickered between them. "Uh...actually, Agent Scully, Agent Mulder _did_ drive the car here..."

"See Scully, I can take care of myself," Mulder said, smirking in a tired way.

Scully squinted up at him with a frown. There were dark blotches under his eyes and he was leaning more of his weight on her than he normally would. She didn't care what recklessness he had engaged in to get here. At this moment, he didn't look as if he was going to be able to keep his eyes open.

"No, you can't. And I'm not going to drive behind you, watching you try to be noble as you weave all over the road—endangering not only yourself, but also Agent Rutherson and I, and any other innocent motorists on the road. Give him your keys."

Mulder was silent for a long moment, and then he pulled his car keys out of his pocket and dropped them into Rutherson's hand. Rutherson moved to help Mulder down the steps, but the withering look in the taller agent's eyes made him shrink back. Rutherson smiled nervously, then turned and jogged lightly down the stairs.

"I'll, uh, follow you, Agent Scully," he said, and hurried towards Mulder's car.

"I'll do _anything_ for you, Agent Scully," Mulder muttered under his breath, mimicking the other agent's tone. Scully pinched his elbow, sending nerve shocks up his arm. " _Ow!_ "

"Cut it out," she hissed. "I can't believe you're working today! With the shape you're in, you belong at home, resting! What was Skinner _thinking_ , sending you to find me? I was fine." She moved them down the stairs, and they started across the pavement towards her car.

Mulder laughed bitterly. "You really think I could rest if I knew you were missing?"

"I wasn't missing, but that's a touching statement. Now you know how I feel when you disappear without warning. By the way, I want to know where you disappeared to a week ago, and what mess you've gotten yourself into now. I'm getting sick of cleaning up aft—" she cut herself off and changed the subject. "Why did you think I was missing? Mulder, I was routinely doing my job, unlike _you_ who had taken off _yet again._ I was checking out an X-File that led me to this mental hospital."

Mulder seemed taken aback by her reply, and was silent for the rest of the short trip to the car. He finally spoke up, a slight uncertainty in his voice.

"What was it about? Should we stay here and finish the investigation?"

She looked up at him, hearing a trust in his voice. It was rare that he ever asked her what direction the investigation should go in. Of course, he _would_ pick a case that had neatly tied itself up already without needing her help. She shook her head and let go of his arm, then stalked around to the driver's side to unlock the doors. They both got in, and she started the engine.

Mulder's seat belt was pressing uncomfortably against his stomach, so he tried to shift his position as Scully pulled the car out into traffic, driving in stony silence. He frowned and looked out the window as she navigated their way through the inner Linsenton area and onto the highway towards Washington D.C., Rutherson trailing a safe distance behind. It was some time before either of them spoke again.

Scully sighed, and Mulder looked at her.

"A nurse at the Center was involved in a murder case," Scully said, "and her account of the situation in the newspaper definitely fit into our jurisdiction: a dead mental patient come to life to murder a night janitor, you would've loved it. The police were stymied, because she had no history of mental illness and there was no trace of alcohol or drugs in her system. The patient, who _had_ been declared dead, is currently alive and well—relatively speaking. She's catatonic, apparently her "normal" state. The doctor who oversaw the case was unable to account for what happened. I drove down to interview everyone involved as soon as possible.

"Unfortunately, the nurse didn't show up for work last night and they found the missing corpse this morning. She'd apparently stashed it in the broom closet. Maybe working for two decades in a mental hospital finally pushed _her_ over the edge. The police apprehended her at about nine a.m. By the way, how did you know I was here?"

"Skinner put out an APB on your car."

Scully frowned at him. "Why? I know I didn't file a 302—I was planning to when I got back—but I've only been out here for one day, and it's not exactly a capital offense. You'd know that—you've survived without it numerous times." She cleared her throat and returned to the road, silent for a few moments before she spoke again. "Why did you two panic and come running after me?" Her face clouded up. "You disappear, without explanation, for five days, and the most that Skinner can think to tell me is that he's 'sure you'll be back, don't worry', but I take off for one morning and the Bureau has to put out an APB on their poor little lady in distress."

"It's not like that," Mulder said quietly. "We had reason to fear for your safety."

She shot him a skeptical look, but then her face softened slightly as she took in his slump and pained expression. "What happened to you, anyway?"

Mulder sighed, rubbing his eyes, and let his head drop back against the seat.

"I didn't get this during my disappearing act, if that's what you're thinking. I got back to my apartment yesterday afternoon and I was—I got in a fight. I lost," he added wryly. "Skinner was worried that whoever attacked me might have attacked you, so we considered the situation slightly more serious than just wondering where you were." He turned towards her. "Scully, I know you can take care of yourself." Mulder sighed, leaning his head back again. "I just can't help but worry about you, sometimes."

Scully dropped her hand from the wheel and found his, lying on the seat between them, and squeezed it gently. "Tell me...what happened to you? Who attacked you?"

Mulder squeezed her hand back, then shook his head and grimaced. He refused to believe that his memories from the night before were anything more than a reaction by his mind to explain painful events. That left him with no explanations at all, and his head was aching too much to feel up to formulating some wild, paranormal hypothesis. A nagging feeling poked at the back of his mind, but he pushed it away. Everything was beginning to seem fuzzy and out-of-focus at the edges.

"I don't know, exactly," he admitted. "They knocked me unconscious, and I had a nightmare after it happened—I don't remember, really."

Scully looked at him, now more worried. Her partner had a photographic and audio-retentive memory; he never forgot _anything,_ sometimes for the worse. She shuddered, not wanting to imagine a life filled with sleepless nights from eidetically-clear nightmares.

"Scully..." Mulder's tone was tentative. "Where were you last night, at about seven?"

"At my apartment, where do you think?" she replied, shooting him a frown.

"Hey, I'm not trying to interrogate you—I just wondered. What did you do today?"

She shrugged and returned her gaze to the road. "I left the apartment early this morning...I don't remember exactly why...now..." she trailed off, then suddenly resumed speaking. "I bought a newspaper on the way to work, saw the nurse's article, remembered you were gone—so why bother going to the office?—and decided to track the woman down before she escaped. I didn't think Skinner would burst a blood vessel if I didn't file a 302. He's starting to expect it from us, I suppose. Why were you wondering?"

"Wondering what?"

Scully frowned. Short-term memory loss; Mulder could recite any arbitrary conversation that had taken place months earlier, verbatim. Now he couldn't even remember what he had asked only seconds before?

"What I was doing last night."

"I..." Mulder trailed off, uncertain. A moment later, he let a small smile tug at the corners of his mouth. "Well, _you_ sound pretty touchy. Had a date last night or something?" His smile trailed off, and he finally plucked up his courage to ask the real question that was burning in his mind—but quickly slipping into the recesses of his memory. "Scully, those women at the hospital—they had you under their mental control. Are you sure you don't remember where you were last night?"

She gave him an incredulous, slightly angry look. "Huh? Mind control? What women? And Mulder, I told you—I _do_ remember where I was! I was doing my laundry, doing some more work on that pathology monograph for the Fall Conference. I went to bed around eleven-thirty. Mulder, are you feeling all right?"

"What happened back at the mental hospital?"

Now she was definitely angry. "I drove there early this morning, left about six-thirty, and tried to find Emily Owens—the nurse I told you about earlier, and then everything _I've already told you about_ happened. Why are you asking me this?"

He was silent for a moment, thinking. Then he spoke softly. "If you got there early this morning, what were you doing there for the rest of the day?"

She frowned, searching her memory. After a long moment, she turned to look at him.

"What...what time is it, Mulder?" She was a little pale.

"If that lovesick puppy back there wasn't exaggerating for dramatic effect, then it's about six p.m. It took us a while to find you..." Mulder frowned. "...although it didn't _feel_ like two hours." He blinked, looking back at her. "Anyway, I got stitches at about seven-thirty this morning—"

"Stitches?!" She turned to look at him. He tilted his head forward slightly to show her the butterfly, and she frowned, then turned back to the road.

"—and then spent a few hours with Skinner and the doctors grilling me about last night. When they finally let up, it was about two in the afternoon, and all I could think about was finding you."

Scully looked down at her watch—but it wasn't on her wrist. She glanced over at Mulder's arm, but his wrist was empty, too. She hadn't bothered to reset her car's clock since she'd had the new battery put in, and it was blinking _4:09_ at her.

"Why don't you have your watch on?"

Mulder rubbed his eyes, bone-tired. "Because I rushed out of my apartment this morning, and forgot to put it on." He stopped rubbing and turned to look down at her arm. "You don't have yours on, either." He didn't sound particularly surprised. "Why?"

Scully turned back to driving, tense and uncertain, knowing that he was going to attribute some cosmic significance to her having forgotten to wear her watch. "I...don't remember."

"Because they took control of your mind."

"What?! Who? What are you talking about, Mulder? Did your visit to the mental ward finally convince you to take up residence there?"

He ignored her remark and plowed on. "The women—in the room! Don't you remember waking up?"

She thought for a few moments, then nodded, somewhat hesitantly.

"After falling asleep last night, I woke up, got dressed, and drove to the Center. I spent the morning trying to find that woman..." she trailed off, suddenly feeling odd. "I guess the first thing I remember clearly is seeing you standing in that room with that strange family of paralyzed women—all of them confined to wheelchairs. They couldn't...take over anyone's mind! By the way, what were you doing in there?"

Mulder was tempted to tell her he'd sacrificed himself to save her life, but stopped, realizing how pretentious—not to mention delusional—that would sound to her. Besides, he was having trouble remembering why himself. He sighed and sat back against the seat, turning his gaze to the window.

Scully decided to change the subject, not really interested in that room anyway. "Mulder, where did you go this time?"

"Wild-goose chase, Virginia. There was nothing there but cows and mosquitoes."

"What were you looking for?"

"I got a tip that there might be a downed UFO. There were some unusual weather disturbances and odd lights in the sky, and a source reported a caravan of black SUVs going through a nearby town."

"Have a nice trip?"

"Lovel—aaahhh," Mulder suddenly grabbed at his head, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Mulder!" Scully pulled the car over to the side of the highway and came to a stop. She put her hand on his arm. After a few seconds, he lowered his shaking hands and stared ahead with an unfocused gaze. "Mulder, what is it? Talk to me."

Mulder heard fear lacing her voice, and he let his muscles relax. "I'm okay..."

"You sure?" Scully was skeptical, but the color was returning to his face, and his eyes seemed clear enough, focusing on her normally.

"Yeah, yeah...better start driving again, or your love slave back there is gonna hop out and come over to see how he might be of service to you."

She slapped his shoulder for that one—he winced—and she glanced at the rearview mirror. Sure enough, Rutherson was pushing his car door open. She quickly put the car into gear and pulled back out onto the highway, taking a secret pleasure in the look of surprise on the man's face. Then again, maybe it wasn't all that secret; Mulder was watching her movements, and there was a gleam in his eye.

"You're enjoying this _way_ too much, partner-of- _mine_ ," he murmured.

She only turned her head to look away from him and let her smile widen.


	3. Business As Usual

_3_

Mulder had two more attacks on the way home, and after watching them, Scully insisted on taking him to the hospital. When he adamantly refused, she decided to stay with him overnight, and he really didn't have the strength to protest. She had a nosebleed in the car—quickly whipping out a tissue to wipe the evidence away, but he had seen it, the image burning itself into his mind and driving a stake into his chest. He had watched her, silent, as she quickly and efficiently cleaned up, just as she handled everything else. He didn't want to fight with her and waste their remaining time together arguing.

The events of the past day were getting fuzzy, so he rested his head against the door frame and let her tell him how worried she had been about him while he was gone. He only listened with half an ear as she went into more detail about her investigation at the mental hospital. Something told him vaguely that she wasn't right, but he couldn't pin down the sensation, and he was too tired to concentrate on it. His mind just felt...exhausted, and there was a certain comfort in simply listening to the sound of Scully's voice. He was glad she planned to stay with him. If he wasn't going to go to a hospital, having a doctor nearby was the next best thing.

_Not to mention that she's a beautiful one, at that—_

Mulder quashed that train of thought. Why was it that he could be in a mental haze, but his subconscious still managed to pull together coherent—well, not _always_ coherent—thoughts about his partner?

When they reached Mulder's apartment, Rutherson had a taxi already waiting to take him back to the Bureau. He returned Mulder's keys and tried to give Scully several significant parting glances that Mulder noticed—and she didn't—as she got him out of her car and moving up the hot sidewalk. Irritated, Mulder thanked Rutherson, who looked distinctly unimpressed with him, and waved the man off.

As much as showing pain was a sign of weakness, Mulder didn't really feel like putting on a brave front—besides, it was _Scully_ he was with; she'd seen him unconscious without a scrap of clothing on, so there really wasn't much dignity left to preserve. He sighed and winced as he walked. His diminutive partner kept a steady pressure on his elbow, carrying her travel bag in her other hand, and accompanied him into the cool darkness of the apartment building. The thought that he wouldn't be able to do without her slipped unwittingly through the mental wall he'd put up between them, but he pushed it aside. Sometimes life was just a lot easier without romantic entanglements.

Every male in the J. Edgar Hoover Building either knew her by sight or by reputation, although her reputation was somewhat different than his own. "Mr. and Mrs. Spooky" was an epithet that occasionally made the rounds, and he really didn't mind that particular collective title. He smiled slightly to himself, letting her guide him without thinking about where he was walking, trusting that she'd take care of him, and letting himself start to relax after the strains of the past few days. He felt a sort of odd peace and satisfaction with his lot. For a man as young as he, it was unusual to be head of an entire department in the FBI—the X-Files, cases that the Bureau filed as 'unexplained'. _Co-head,_ he corrected, remembering the invaluable person walking beside him.

More than twelve years earlier, a young Fox Mulder had completed a B.A. with first class honours in criminal psychology at Oxford University in record time, and had been immediately drafted into the FBI at only 24 years of age, where they'd quickly put him to work profiling their toughest criminals. He had rapidly risen to the top of the Violent Crimes Section in the Behavioral Science Unit, and he was assigned the most baffling, gruesome cases. He immersed himself in the job, working his way into the criminals' twisted minds. His brilliance allowed him to make leaps of logic and intuition that were dead on target, and considered spooky by the other agents working with him. The nickname 'Spooky Mulder' had quickly stuck, and he did nothing to belay the reputation. In a backwards sort of way, he enjoyed the strange looks and the resulting almost-awe from the other agents that were later paired with him.

But he paid his own private price for the success: vivid nightmares. His sense of humor warped and his behavior became erratic. None of his partners lasted more than three months with him. Each of them requested a transfer, quite insistently. One woman and four men, before the Bureau finally decided not to partner him. Nothing that he had done could warrant dismissal, however, and he was their best profiler, so they were in a quandary about to what to do with their maverick agent. He ended up solving their own problem for them—and opening up a host of new ones—when he discovered the X-Files.

Relieved to have something to focus on that didn't involve serial murders, Mulder was delighted to read and soak up all the information that he could, studying the paranormal and the occult, opening himself up to extreme possibilities. The tantalizing hints and unanswered questions fascinated him, his vivid imagination quickly filling in the gaps, and he was possessed with an almost giddy energy. He filed dozens of 302's, eager to begin investigating leads, but the requests didn't fall under the jurisdiction of the BSU Assistant Director, or anyone's jurisdiction, really. The X-Files were dead ends, intentionally dropped in an administrative crack and forgotten. It seemed the perfect place to let him spin his wheels and stay out of trouble until they decided what to do with him. They moved some administrative paperwork around, created a temporary new department, and placed it under the jurisdiction of Assistant Director Walter Skinner—the most junior of the A.D.'s at the time. Skinner was less than pleased. The stack of 302's looked like a joke, not a justifiable use of taxpayers' money.

But they granted Mulder the X-Files and gave him the basement dust collection and the old typewriter supply closet to set up office. Mulder's first partner, Special Agent Diana Fowley, had run hot and then cold, constantly fighting with him until she got fed up and resigned. Expecting that the X-Files would be shut down, Mulder had been surprised when Skinner decided to send him a new partner. She was a young doctor, a pathologist, someone who had written her masters' thesis on Einstein's Twin Paradox, and was gaining a reputation around Quantico and inside the Bureau as the Ice Queen.

Special Agent Dana Scully was smart and aloof, had distinguished herself as a firm believer in science, and was cold as ice to any flirtations—which, after the debacle with Agent Fowley, suited Mulder just fine. He always took the time to study up on his partner-to-be—any little detail to enhance the Spooky image—so he was convinced, once she saw the subject material of the X-Files, that she would be gone within a week.

Scully had stayed, though. She still remained with him, despite him and because of him, after four and a half years, and by now she knew him better than anyone else. She was almost a foot shorter than him, dwarfed by his tall frame. She had a petite build, her skin pale and her hair a fiery red. At first glance, she seemed fragile and small, but his years of working with her had wrought a completely different picture of her in his mind. Oftentimes, she was _his_ strength. Now, after twelve years of working in the Bureau, he couldn't work as well without a partner—Scully.

They stopped at his apartment door, and she unlocked it for them. She moved inside and flipped on the light switch, quickly taking in the dark splotches on the floor and coffee table. Mulder sagged against the doorframe, watching her put her briefcase, purse, and travel bag down before she took off her suit jacket. She turned and looked up at him.

"Mulder?"

"I'm okay," he responded wearily, pushing himself off of the frame and walking inside. He'd taken off his own suit jacket in the car and he dropped it on a chair back now, wincing as he bent his head forward slightly. The stiff collar of his shirt was rubbing against the butterfly. "I just need to change out of these clothes." He moved away from her and into his bedroom—which was more of a closet, considering he rarely used the bed.

Scully went into the kitchen to find herself something to eat. They'd probably have to get take-out, she realized. Mulder wasn't known for keeping his pantry well-stocked, and anything that had been fresh was now at least five days old. She peered into the refrigerator. A carton of milk and some eggs, assorted cartons of Chinese...

She jumped when she heard a loud crash across the apartment, then silence.

"Mulder?"

She was answered by a muffled groan. She ran from the kitchen into his bedroom, fear gripping her when she did not find him. She moved farther into the room, noticing that the bathroom light was on, and as she rounded the corner, she stopped short in the doorway, frightened. Her partner was lying on the bathroom floor, his shirt off in one corner. He was curled up into a tight ball, holding his head and shaking. It didn't seem to be a seizure, though. A moan escaped him, and she quickly dropped to her knees next to him. She lifted his head onto her lap and pushed his hands down from his face, making sure his airways weren't obstructed.

He was sweating, and his breathing was slightly labored. She could only watch as he fought whatever pain was paralyzing him. She held his head as firmly as she could without pressing against his bruises, and after several long, terrible seconds of watching his entire body straining against _something,_ he suddenly relaxed, drew in a deep breath and slowly released it.

Her eyes moved over the bruises scattered across his torso and her body tightened with worry. _What_ happened _to him?_ She considered calling an ambulance, but discarded that idea.

After a few moments of working to regain his equilibrium, his long legs stretched out and he opened his eyes to look up at her.

"Oh...Scully," he whispered, then coughed to clear his throat. He reached out to touch her, and his fingers found her ankle. "Don't cry...I'm okay...now."

"Oh—I'm," and she suddenly lifted one hand to her face, wiping at her eyes. She hadn't even know she was crying. She could feel her face growing hot, embarrassed that she'd let him see her weakness. He looked shattered at the sight of her face. She quickly assumed a no-nonsense expression and frowned. "It's not your fault—stop looking like it is."

Mulder sighed, closing his eyes. She felt chastised and shifted back into being a doctor.

"What happened?"

He shook his head slightly in her lap.

"Mulder, if you had some kind of seizure, you need to be seen by a specialist. I can't sit by and watch you suffer."

"It wasn't a seizure. I've had them before, and this wasn't one."

"Then we don't know what it was. Are you sure you won't let me take you to the hospital?"

He opened his eyes. "I'm sure. I had enough of it already today."

"All right," she sighed, frustrated. "Do you think you can sit up? I really need to get you into bed—and you're going to use the bed. I don't want you falling asleep on that vinyl sofa."

"It's comfortable."

"I know, I slept on it once."

He raised an eyebrow, and she decided that _now_ was the time to push him up, off her lap. She managed to get him up far enough that he pulled himself slowly to his feet, one hand braced on the edge of the sink. He winced quietly as he moved, and the sight of the dark bruises on his lower back sent a small, tight fist into her gut. She was careful to avoid them as she put her arm out to support him.

"When did you get the chance to do that?" he asked.

She shuffled him out of the bathroom and across the few feet to the bed, where he sat down on the edge and sank, letting his shoulders droop. He looked exhausted.

"Once, when you'd disappeared just like you did last week," she replied. "You think you can undress yourself and find something more comfortable to wear?"

"Yeah—just let me have a couple of minutes."

"If you need my help getting changed, you'll call, right? Nothing noble?"

"To be noble or not to be...?" His tired eyes glinted mischievously. "Which scenario do you prefer?"

She let the corner of her mouth curve up.

"You don't _really_ want to find out..." she answered, making a small dismissive gesture. She walked out, feeling slightly pleased at the look on his face as she turned away. _Two can play this game,_ she thought. It was all pretty harmless, really. They played it often.

She closed the door softly behind her and went out to the living room. After spending a few minutes cleaning the coffee table and putting the den back in order, she returned to the kitchen. The idea of waiting for take-out wasn't terribly appealing, so she figured an omelet would be an acceptable dinner. After changing into a pair of gray shorts and a green T-shirt that had IRISH AND PERFECT written in large white lettering across it, she went about getting the ingredients. Mulder came into the kitchen a few minutes later, just as she was flipping his omelet over. She glanced back when she heard his footsteps.

"You up to eating dinner?" she called. He came up behind her and leaned over her shoulder to inhale the sizzling aromas, close enough for her to feel the heat of his body through her clothing. He sniffed at the frying pan.

"Starving, Mom... I never pictured you as a master chef, either."

She found herself holding her breath, and half-angrily let it out. "Oh, stop. It's just an omelet."

"Smells good," he said, then moved away and went to open the fridge.

She felt vaguely disappointed, then slammed the feeling away, angry at herself. At both of them. _Why?_ She took a deep breath and let it out, forcing her concentration on to dribbling more chopped pepper into the sizzling eggs. She heard him rummaging in the refrigerator.

"What are you looking for?"

"The only thing I've got to drink is milk—or water."

"That's fine by me," she replied, turning her head to eye him, her hands still moving over the stove. He straightened up—slowly—and held out the carton of milk.

"Only got two days left on the expiration date. I guess we'd better drink it up," he announced, not looking entirely pleased by the prospect.

Scully turned back to the stove, a slight smile on her face—she had just had a mental picture of Mulder with a milk mustache spring into her mind. For some reason, it was harder this time to push the thought away. _I'm glad I don't stay over often..._

Several minutes later, she had finished the omelets. Mulder had poured them both glasses of milk and was seated across the table from her side, looking distinctly eager to eat. He sipped at his milk—darn, no mustache. _Arr... Stop being silly, Dana—you're a doctor and a grown woman!_

She came over with the hot pan and flipped his omelet onto his plate, then followed with her own plate. After dropping the frying pan in the sink, she sat down, and they ate a quiet meal, content just to have each other's presence across the table.

* * *

Half an hour later, Scully made him use his bed for the second, or maybe third, time since he had lived in the apartment. It was queen-sized, and looked slightly more comfortable to her than a hot and sticky vinyl couch did in the summer heat. The bedroom window was open and a light breeze moved over the room, so she stretched out next to him to watch a science fiction B-movie on the cheesy cable channel that Mulder, for some reason only Mulder knew, subscribed to. She would just stay with him until she was sure he had fallen asleep, and then she'd take a sheet from the closet and go sleep on the sticky sofa.

For a man that hadn't had a decent night's sleep for nearly a week, he stayed awake for a surprisingly long while, his eyes open but not really watching the colorized serial. Maybe the late meal had given him some energy, but it hadn't done that for her, and she found her own eyes drifting closed, without warning. She would open them suddenly, and look at his face—and find that his eyes were still open. Perhaps he didn't want to face another nightmare, and was putting it off until he couldn't fight it any longer. That was often how he fell asleep, she knew. She moved her hand over and touched his, and she saw him blink at the contact, then turn his face towards hers.

She raised her eyebrows in a silent question, but felt more than saw him shake his head wearily. He lifted the TV remote and lowered the volume to a background murmur. Resolving to stay awake with him, she pushed herself up a bit and tried to re-focus on the movie, to wait and make sure that he found sleep. But after what seemed like an eternity later, she vaguely registered that her eyes were closed, and a guilty feeling of betrayal started to push at her mind. She didn't have any more energy...to open...eyes.

The bed shifted, and then something warm and slightly moist touched her temple lightly. A moment later, a finger touched her hair, pushing back a wisp. She dropped off to sleep, a warmth surrounding her. The cool breezes wafted over the bare skin of her legs and she sighed quietly.

The man beside her finally closed his own eyes.

* * *

6:30 A.M.

Mulder opened his eyes and let his glance drift over to the open window across the room. He was slightly disoriented for a moment, until he recognized the interior of his bedroom. A wry expression crossed his face, and he started to roll over—

_NOPE! Stop right there!_

Every ache and stiff muscle and scrape announced itself immediately, and he let out a groan. He stubbornly pushed the aching in his neck aside and turned his head to glance over at the clock. He was a little surprised that he had been able to sleep so long—and he didn't remember having any serious nightmares. A possible reason why quickly flitted, unbidden, through his mind, and he looked over to where she had been sleeping last night. The other side of the bed was neatly made—or would have been if he hadn't made an aborted attempt to roll over—and a note was lying on the pillow.

_You seemed to be sleeping well—I woke up several times last night to check on you, but your breathing was normal and by all outward signs, you looked fine. I'm leaving to go get a change of clothes at home. I'll see you at work._

_Scully_

He pulled himself out of bed, slowly, and moved into the bathroom to get dressed. _Life as usual,_ he thought wryly.

* * *

8:30 A.M.

Scully walked into their basement office to find Mulder rifling through the file cabinets in the back of the small room. He was bent over a drawer near the floor, and another drawer was pulled out halfway at the top of the cabinet. She walked in and dropped her purse on the front of his desk, barely remembering at the last second not to knock his nameplate into a dark and deserted corner with an irritated swipe. _Dark and deserted...? Where had that come from?_

She dismissed the question without another thought and slid around the desk to sit in his chair. Opening a paper bag she'd gotten from a bakery on the way to the Bureau, she pulled out a late-breakfast bagel and took a bite. She glanced over at him and realized he was wearing his glasses—and hadn't immediately taken them off the moment she walked in, which meant he hadn't noticed her enter. Whatever he was reading must be particularly interesting. She took a few moments to admire him in the glasses, then tore herself away with some effort and tried to get his attention.

Squeaking the chair didn't make a dent in his concentration, and she suddenly had an insane little hope that he'd stay oblivious and leave the glasses on—

She quashed that thought immediately and glanced over at the coffee maker. Empty. Mulder still hadn't looked up from his searching, since he seemed to have located the file he had been looking for, and was squatting in front of the lowest open drawer, engrossed in reading it. Scully slid the chair sideways from behind the desk a foot or so and leaned forward, swallowing her bite of bagel.

"Did you remember to make coffee this morning, or is this more important?"

Mulder looked up, pulling his eyes from the page he had been reading. He looked at her for a moment, as if for a fraction of a second he didn't recognize her, and then he was Mulder again, with a mock-apologetic grin and a shake of his head. For some reason, those glasses were driving her nuts in the best sense of the word. She decided a change of mental subject would be appropriate, and took a great interest in her fingernails.

"Sorry..." He smiled at her. "I woke up at a leisurely time this morning, and bought a cup on the way here. Had the most enjoyable experience with the drive-thru speaker; the girl thought I wanted a grease-laden egg muffin instead of a large coffee, can you imagine that?"

"I suppose you couldn't refuse her cheery face and the thought of inhaling nine hundred calories at seven-thirty in the morning, right?"

"Of course not—what with a hearty breakfast like that, I'll be at my most vigorous today. You really can't complain, doctor. I'm already feeling better since yesterday...thanks to you."

Scully took another bite of her bagel and reached into her bag to pull out a Styrofoam cup of coffee, prepared for any eventuality. Mulder eyed the cup and shook his head, smirking as he looked back down at the folder in his hands.

"I'm glad you're feeling better." She popped a hole in the cover and took a sip. "So...what're you looking at?"

Mulder glanced back down at the folder, and after a moment of hesitation, started to straighten up—only to whack the back of his head on the still-extended drawer at the top of the file cabinet. He winced and pulled back slowly, putting up one hand to gingerly touch the offended area. Scully frowned at the sight of him standing there with his eyes closed, one hand holding the back of his head, the other holding the open file, completely silent. He hadn't even cried out when he crashed into the drawer.

She got up from the chair, pushed both of the drawers closed, and turned to look at him. He had opened his eyes, but he was standing still—too still, it seemed—staring into space. She waved her hand in front of his face, and he shook his head slightly.

"I...forgot I'd left that open. Ow," he pressed the back of his head experimentally, and winced. "I'm batting a thousand in the injury department, aren't I?"

He moved over to sit in the chair in front of his desk, lowering himself down with one hand, and straightened his glasses slightly from where they had been knocked askew. Scully walked back to the seat behind his desk and sat down. She eyed him silently for a moment and then picked up her bagel. He went back to reading the file again. She waited a couple of minutes, then cleared her throat. He looked up, waiting for her say whatever she had on her mind.

"Well...?" she prompted, taking a sip of her cooling coffee. He tilted his head slightly, as if unsure of what she was referring to, and then suddenly sat forward.

"Oh—you wanted to know what this is all about. Right," he gestured at the file in his lap, pulling off his glasses with his other hand and tucking them away in his shirt pocket.

 _No, leave them on..._ "Something like that," she replied, eyeing him. He might have said he felt better, but there was something about him that was different, wrong somehow, that she couldn't put her finger on. Maybe it was just her imagination, though. Mulder was known to get completely wrapped up in something to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps this absent-mindedness could just be attributed to that.

 _Mulder is not absent-minded,_ she reminded herself firmly.

_Then maybe his...trouble...two nights ago loosened some screws?_

She filed that thought away—it held decidedly serious ramifications— _and besides,_ the voice said matter-of-factly, _he already_ has _a few screws loose._

She frowned. Where had _that_ come from? She still didn't know what had happened to him, and he had evaded her questions last night. She opened her mouth to ask him, but he'd already launched into his explanation of the folder.

"I was thinking about missing time and I've found a pattern. This is a compilation of local accounts that I've noticed over the past couple years—magazine and newspaper articles, interview transcripts, police reports—concerning sudden memory loss."

"It's a common experience to lose memories concerning traumas and the events immediately surrounding them, Mulder. That's not exactly an X-File."

"Yes...but Scully, these accounts are from people who lost memories—lost time, if you will—occurring not during or immediately after a traumatic experience, but anywhere between one day to two weeks later. And for no apparent reason when they did."

"Delayed response or repressed reaction, Mulder. What makes this an X-File?"

"A large percentage of them all happened within a thirty-mile radius of the Gregson Mental Health Center."

Scully raised one eyebrow. An odd look passed briefly over Mulder's face, then disappeared. She filed it away and continued her skeptical questions.

"Really. What about the 'small percentage' that you didn't mention?"

"Scattered cases across the country. But there's a statistically-significant clustering of these cases in the Maryland area."

"And they're all around the Center."

"Well, actually, most of them happened within a thirty-mile radius of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, too...if that means anything." He gave her a lopsided grin.

"Which means that they're also all within that distance around Puffy's Bar & Grill, down the street, right?"

"Technically, yes."

"And you came to this conclusive connection from just looking at a bunch of magazine and newspaper articles?"

Mulder coughed slightly. "Well...no. I started looking up anything in the X-Files that would resemble my own experience during the last day or so, too. Scully, I swear that there's this huge hole in my memory for some amount of time yesterday. I slept fine last night—"

"That's good."

"—but I woke up this morning with the conviction that I _have_ to find out what happened during that missing time."

"Mulder, are you saying that you think you were abducted by E.T. while you were looking for me at the Center yesterday?"

"Nooo...but think about it, Scully: why would it take me two hours to find you in a well-lit, well-organized hospital building with hundreds of eyewitnesses around for me to ask questions of? I've found you in minutes in a darkened building in the middle of the night, in a hidden trailer that was barely connected to the case we were working on, in houses no one else thought to look in—"

"Okay, so now that you've established that you have a homing device to find me anywhere—which, now that you mention it, is a little bit creepy—"

"Spooky." Mulder flashed his teeth at her.

She pressed on, unfazed. "—you're saying that it took you two hours to find me yesterday, when I was at most two floors away from you the whole time?"

"Exactly."

"If you want me to tell you that you're slipping, then: you're slipping. I suppose that you're going to have to find a new way to home in on me."

"Scully, are you propositioning me?"

She took the last bite of bagel and popped it in her mouth. She said nothing, letting one eyebrow arch slightly. Another one of those odd looks appeared quickly on his face and he eyed her for a moment, then went back to his impassioned declaration of paranormal activity near the Gregson Mental Health Center.

"Something happened to me, Scully. I've got to find out what it is! Are you coming with me or not?"

"Today?"

"Of course. When else would we go?"

"Mulder, I've got to file that 302—and this one too, if we go, for that matter. Besides, I was hoping that with you slightly less than your usual energetic self, we'd be able to stay here and get some of the department paperwork done. It's been piling up over the last month or so, you know."

"Well, taking that into consideration, we _definitely_ must go today."

"Mulder, you're not going to abandon me to all the paperwork while you go off again. I'm not your secretary, you know."

"No...you're not. Though maybe if you had your own desk we could fit a typewriter on it, and you'd actually have the room to be one."

She just gave him an icy, impatient look. "We stay here today, you take it easy, and we can go through the proper channels to investigate the Center by tomorrow."

"But Scully, this is—"

The shrill ringing of the phone cut him off, and Scully picked up the receiver.

"Agent Dana Scully."

"Put Mulder on," an unfamiliar male voice said. She frowned.

"May I tell him who's calling?"

"Who're you, his secretary? Put him on!" She heard mumbling on the other end of the line, and felt her blood pressure rising.

"Excuse me, I am not—"

"Oh, did you say you were Agent Scully?" the voice cut in. More mumbling, and then a hurried apology. "I'm sorry, Dr. Scully. Didn't mean to be so short with you. Just a lot of stress—didn't recognize your name at first. This is Supervisory Special Agent Grant Johnson, VCS Division Chief. I need to speak to Agent Mulder."

Scully gritted her teeth. Johnson had been one of the Violent Crime Section agents in the Behavioral Science Unit on the Tooms case three years earlier, and he hadn't hesitated to show his disdain for Mulder then. She wondered briefly what he wanted from Mulder now, and held the phone out to her partner across the desk.

"It's _Supervisory_ Special Agent Johnson, VCS Division Chief," she said curtly, still stinging slightly from the 'secretary' remark, and Mulder took the phone from her outstretched hand. His eyes searched hers for a moment, as if asking for more information and borrowing strength at the same time, and then he put the phone to his ear.

Scully stood up and walked over to her computer, listening to her partner's half of the conversation, which was short, perfunctory, and did not sound particularly happy. He put the phone back down only moments later and stood up, dropping the folder of articles and interviews down on his desk with an annoyed _thwack_.

"It seems that this memory-loss case is going to be shelved for the moment—that'll make you happy." His tone was irritable, and she turned to look at him, wondering at his sudden change of mood.

"What is it?"

"They want me to go up and spend the day working on a profile for a—big surprise—series of very strange, painstakingly-committed murders. As usual, the clock is ticking."

"Mulder, that's your specialty."

Giving her a chagrined look, he picked up his suit jacket, a thick pad of paper, and a couple of unsharpened pencils from somewhere in the pile on the edges of his desk, and went to the door.

"I'm just tired of it all."

He started to pull the door closed, then moved back into the room for a moment, an incongruous half-grin suddenly on his face. "At least it'll give you some time to get all of that _paperwork_ done." He smirked at her before pulling the door shut behind him.

Scully stood alone in the basement office, irked at once again being shoved into the role of a dutiful secretary. She sat down in her chair and turned on her computer, allowing herself to stomp her foot before she yanked a sheaf of unfilled forms off of a nearby shelf.

Despite her annoyance, she paused and frowned towards the door, worried. His words echoed through her mind, matching her own thoughts.

_I'm just tired of it all._

 


	4. Something Is Missing

_4_

"Agent Mulder, glad you could come _upstairs,_ " Johnson sneered, holding out his hand for the polite handshake. Mulder pointedly ignored it and looked past him instead.

"Thank you for inviting me to work on this case. Can I see what your people have on these murders so far?"

Johnson's eyes flickered briefly over Mulder's face, and then he turned away with a curt nod. They approached the knot of men huddled around the table in the middle of the conference room. There were six of them; all veterans of the department, men whom Mulder had worked with when he was in the VCS up until almost five years ago. He was looking at the best profilers that the FBI had to offer. He braced himself inwardly. This must be one doozy of a case.

The group looked up when he arrived, and as he took off his suit jacket and put the pad and pencils down on the table, the men watched his movements in silence, some of them smirking. Johnson walked to the head of the table and motioned for everyone to listen. Mulder stood at the end of the table, hands in his pockets. The pose was putting undue stress on his neck, but he didn't care. There were murders to be solved and an image to uphold. To the younger agents now in the VCS, he was something of a legend—a man who returned to the department when they needed him, and who worked his spooky magic on the most difficult and gruesome cases—but to the men who now sat around him, he _was_ Spooky. They had given him the nickname, and with the way they were eyeing him with amused looks, they weren't letting him forget that now.

_Fine. I'll work my magic, and then just let me go back downstairs..._

Johnson cleared his throat, and all eyes turned back to him. "Agent Mulder, we have been tracking this case for the last six months or so." He motioned for the man nearest Mulder to pass a case file over.

Mulder pulled it in front of him and swallowed as he opened up the file. He hated each one, each new set of nightmares, each new unspeakably-evil mind that he had to get inside of and turn inside-out for the men around him to wash and dry and claim the glory for. He hated each black-and-white photograph—as if black-and-white would lessen its horror—and each description of a bloody and mangled body. But he opened every case file anyway, because there were innocent people who needed his abilities to protect them. Because if he didn't, he knew the guilt of failing to stop another murder would weigh heavily and painfully on him, and that the nightmares would not go away.

These photographs were tame in comparison. He glanced at the men around him, who were watching Johnson's presentation. Johnson was explaining the patternless killings that were strewn across the Eastern Seaboard. The victims, who ranged from the ages of ten to sixty-eight, were of both sexes, were from different socioeconomic classes and different occupations, and did not seem to share any discernible features. The authorities had already discovered sixteen victims, but suspected that there were many more to be found, and future murders were very likely. The only feature that identified the bodies as the work of a serial killer was the exact nature of their deaths. Each had been found in a locked garage or warehouse inside a running car, dead from inhaling a lethal amount of the carbon monoxide fumes produced by the car's internal combustion.

At the first discovered case, the local police had considered it suicide—many of the deaths had initially been ruled suicides—but persistent, disbelieving family members had demanded an autopsy, and unexplained traces of a general anesthetic were found in the victim's blood. It was considered an isolated event, and no one noticed the coinciding modus operandi in several other states until two months later, when a pathologist stumbled on another of the dead bodies from a neighboring county and, out of curiosity, ran a search in the National Pathological Database, where he found six other identical deaths in the surrounding states. A few days later, the FBI took over the case.

Mulder breathed a slight sigh of relief at not being faced with bloody photographs— _for once, a seemingly humane case_ —but he caught himself, chagrined at being so callous. This was anything but humane—a ten-year-old girl had been killed in the car next to her father!

Johnson's voice droned on about all the profiling approaches they had already attempted, and how each left too many suspects to narrow down the search. Sanford suggested that perhaps it was the work of several serial killers who were either coordinating their efforts or acting as copycats. Someone else floated the possibility of an Internet connection between the victims and their attackers, but so far, the data forensics guys hadn't turned up anything conclusive. Whoever had done the killings had made certain no evidence was left behind. There was nothing that would explain how the sedatives got into the victims' blood without there being any sign of a struggle, or even a needle puncture mark. The Mafia or similar organizations were probably not involved, since none of the victims had a record of suspicious activities; all were normal citizens who just seemed to be going about their daily lives.

The others around the table whispered comments to one another, but Mulder was turning each sheet of information and each photograph over slowly, capturing an indelible mental image of each one. His hand stopped on the picture of the little ten-year-old girl. He reached down to trace her face, her eyes closed as if in innocent sleep. Her hair was dark, her face rounded with childish innocence, her small arms hanging limply at her sides as she lay back against the car's seat, held there by an implacable seatbelt.

Scully's words echoed in his ears. _Mulder, I know why this case means so much to you..._

But that was so long ago.

An ache started behind his right eye and he rubbed at it absently, giving a weary sigh.

The room suddenly seemed too quiet. He tore his eyes away from the picture and looked up, only to find the whole table of men staring at him. What had he done now?

"Are we boring you, Agent Mulder?" Johnson asked, his upper lip curling as he narrowed his eyes. Mulder sighed inaudibly and looked at the senior agent.

"To be honest..." He smirked, which only made Johnson glare at him.

Bob Ness frowned. "Have you found something, Spooky?"

"No, I—"

"Then we would all greatly appreciate it if you could bring yourself to pay attention to the briefing," Johnson snapped. "Unless you have information to contribute to this case, I would like to continue. With _everyone's_ eyes on the slides up here."

Mulder put the photograph down on the table, leaned back against the wall behind him, and folded his arms over his chest, his mouth set in a stubborn line. Johnson glared at him for a moment longer, and then Peter Sanford mumbled something that made the agent next to him snicker.

Setting his jaw, Mulder fixed his gaze on the photograph presently being show on the slide, which coincidentally was the picture of the little girl. As Johnson's voice droned on, Mulder let his eyes scour the picture, searching for some minute clue that the others had missed. The ordinariness of the photograph stood out to him: there were no marks on the body, no marks on the surrounding car seat, nothing strange at all. It looked like she was sleeping peacefully. If he hadn't been told that the little dark-haired girl was dead—just like his sister—

_Samantha..._

And then his head erupted in pain and blackness swarmed over him with its oily wings.

* * *

He woke up on the floor, his head bent at an awkward angle against the wall that he had been leaning against only moments before.

... _How long have I been out? What happened?_

He moved his head away from the wall and opened his eyes to look up at a circle of seven faces above him. Their expressions alternated between concern, curiosity, and relief at seeing that he was awake. Ness bent down closer to him.

"Spooky? Hey, what happened? You okay?"

 _No, I'm not okay, obviously..._ "Yeah," Mulder replied slowly, blinking. "I'm fine."

"What happened?" Sanford looked interested in finding out why Spooky Mulder had just collapsed, without warning, and he also looked about ready to burst from the room and shout his findings in the hallway. Mulder suppressed a groan—no use giving these vultures the pleasure of hearing it—and sat up. At bit too fast, apparently, since his vision blurred and blackened, and a wave of pain rushed to the front of his forehead and settled heavily over his eyes. He sat still for a second, waiting for the reaction to pass, and then started to push himself up to his feet.

Ness put a hand on his arm. "Whoa there."

Johnson was standing behind Ness, arms akimbo. "Agent Mulder, I really think you should—"

Mulder shook off Ness's hand and stood up; the men who were crowded tightly around him scrambled back to get out of his way. No one reached out to steady him again, which was just as well, since the renewed wave of pain was more bearable this time. He gathered himself and took a deep breath, then walked over to the table and flipped his copy of the case file closed. The other agents followed him, and as he reached for the file and his things, Johnson grabbed his arm.

"Agent Mulder, you can't! You—something just happened to you! We need to call a medic up here—"

"I'm fine," Mulder growled, bending down to pick up his suit jacket and pulling his arm out of the man's grasp. "I'm leaving, and I'm taking this—" he indicated the file, "—with me."

"You can't go, Agent Mulder," Sanford protested, almost smiling. "We haven't finished briefing you. You're not fit to continue."

"I'm leaving." Mulder gathered up his things and turned towards the door. Johnson moved into his way.

"Listen, Agent Mulder. I don't know what happened to you a couple of minutes ago, but you're certainly not 'fine', and you are definitely not going to leave this room without agreeing to see a medic. I brought you up here to help with this case, but if you're not able to work on it, we can make do without you."

"I can do it."

Johnson frowned, not moving.

"Get out of my way."

"No. Something just happened to you, _Spooky,_ and—"

"Get out of my way," Mulder growled.

"We're not going to let you leave until we make sure you're all right." Sanford smirked.

"Fine. I'll stop by the Infirmary on the way out." An unabashed lie. Mulder wouldn't go near the Infirmary; there was no reason to do it. Besides, what could he tell them— _'I can't help it, I'm missing time from when aliens sucked out my brains!'_ He contemplated decking Johnson's self-assured face but decided it wasn't worth the trouble, and shouldered his way past the older man instead.

"You won't get away with this, Spooky!" Johnson shouted after him. "I won't let you work on it—!"

Mulder slammed the door behind himself and stalked towards the elevator. He could care less what that red-faced Johnson had to say about it. There was a serial killer to be found, and no amount of fainting was going to stop him from catching the monster. As he waited for an elevator, he mentally retraced his steps up to the moment when he blacked out. The innocent sleeping, the little girl, the ordinariness, the fact she was dead, Samantha—

He had to put his arm out against the wall next to the elevator doors to steady himself when the blackness threatened to overtake him again, but he bit into his lip and concentrated on staying awake until it passed, a few excruciating moments later. His chest constricted, and he could hear the faint sound of the doors opening, of the bell signaling the arrival of the elevator. He opened his eyes, a new agony forming in them.

_He could not remember Samantha's face._

* * *

5:38 P.M.

Scully flipped the folder closed, tucking the last of the newspaper articles back inside, then got to her feet behind the large desk and walked over to the file cabinets. She stood for a moment, holding the folder in her hands, and wondering what had happened to her partner two days before. Who had beaten him, and why? And she couldn't help but worry about what he was doing in the VCS right now. Was he driving himself into the ground, working his way into another horrible, twisted mind, giving himself fresh fodder for nightmares?

She crouched down in front of the cabinet and pulled out the bottom drawer, found the place, and slid the folder into its spot. Straightening up slowly, she pushed the drawer closed with her foot, then moved over to turn off her computer. It was late in the afternoon, and she had spent the entire day—with the exception of going to the cafeteria for an unimaginative lunch and one or two bathroom breaks to clean up after nosebleeds—huddled in this small, dark office, filing forms and writing closing reports on some of the outstanding cases.

When she had finally gotten fed up with streamlining Mulder's expense reports to acceptable limits—did he really think that Skinner would allow him to charge a psychic-reader's costs to the Bureau?—she had gone over to sit behind Mulder's desk and read through the folder he had left behind that morning. She'd spent the last three hours tracing the events that were in the folders, and found that each had indeed occurred within thirty miles of the Gregson Mental Health Center—twenty-six miles, to be exact, if she considered Mulder's account to be among them.

She had also made a few dozen calls to check on the current medical status of the people in each of the cases in the Maryland area—and found, to her horror, that of the thirty-four cases Mulder had collected, twenty-nine had died from a some form of grand mal seizure and the remaining five were hospitalized in a comatose state. There was no evidence of a viral or bacterial infection, no known biological contagions. Each of the victims had been in good health, but had suddenly begun to suffer unexplained collapses, after having been missing for more than a day. A few of the victims seemed to have known each other, but she hadn't put in the time to track down connections between all of them. She doubted Mulder had known any of them, and she prayed that what Mulder was suffering was unrelated to all of these people's deaths.

She wondered why he had had a memory lapse. Although she was somewhat annoyed at not being able to remember most of that day clearly herself, she was particularly concerned for her partner. Mulder's eidetic mind did not allow the past to be lost, whereas a common experience—such as investigating a nondescript case at that mental health center—would eventually lose itself in her own mind as it would in most others'. Her strength lay in her objectivity and her analytical skills, and they were both formidable. So it was _his_ loss of memory that was more disturbing.

Still thinking, she switched off the computer and turned to gather up her bag.

"Agent Scully?"

She jumped, not expecting the visitor. Skinner moved into the room, his face serious and creased with worry.

"Sir? Is there something wrong?" She walked over to where he stood and could see that he was tense, his jaw clenched.

"Have you seen Agent Mulder?"

A tightness crept into her stomach.

"He came in this morning, sir. I last saw him at about eight-thirty—I believe that he had gone up to the BSU; Agent Johnson requested his help on a case."

"He did go up to the BSU, Agent Scully. He left only twenty minutes later. He hasn't been seen since. I tried calling his apartment and his cell phone. I don't know where else to look..." Skinner paused, his jaw working, and then he narrowed his eyes and glanced around the office. "Scully, did you notice anything unusual about him this morning?"

"Sir, I don't—" But she cut herself off and was silent for a moment, not sure of how to voice her impressions and intuition. She had a nagging question to ask. "Sir, what happened to Mulder two nights ago?"

"I don't know. I came by his apartment early that morning and found him hurt. I took him down to GW for stitches, and then the doctor and I tried to get him to tell us what happened. Took me a while to realize that..." Skinner looked down at her, worry creasing his features. "...I don't think he even knows, himself."

The knot in her stomach tightened. "What happened up in the BSU, sir?"

"Johnson said that he started the briefing and then Mulder suddenly collapsed, unconscious."

"He _what?_ "

"They woke him up a minute later, and aside from looking a bit unsteady on his feet, he said he was fine—" Scully snorted softly and Skinner met her gaze with a grim nod as he continued, "—and he insisted on taking the case with him, and left."

"They let him leave?"

"Johnson said he tried to stop him, but, well...you know Mulder can be...stubborn."

Scully set her jaw and frowned.

"You said he took the case file with him?"

Skinner nodded.

"Then he's still working on it now..." her voice trailed off, and the tight fist in her stomach wound its way up into her chest. _If he's still able to..._ She tried to think of where he would have gone, since he hadn't come to the X-Files office. She remembered hearing footsteps in the hallway outside the office door that morning, footsteps that she had thought were his, but when she turned to look, he hadn't come in. _He must still be down here!_

"I think I know where he is, sir!" she exclaimed, then darted around Skinner and out the office door. His mouth dropping open in surprise, the A.D. spun around and followed her down the hallway. She ran before him, her small heels clicking on the cement. She turned her head to look at each of the doors as she passed them; all were dark, except for one halfway down the hallway. There was a faint line of light shining under the closed door, and she stopped in front of it, rapping lightly on it twice.

"Mulder? Are you in there?"

Skinner stopped behind her. After a long moment of silence, she knocked again.

"Mulder?"

Something scraped on the floor inside the room, and a faint voice said, "It's open."

Scully reached down and twisted the doorknob, pushing the old door open slowly. Mulder sat behind a small table at the back of the small room, holding his forehead in his hands, his elbows resting on the tabletop. He slid his gaze up and she felt a sharp pang at the utter exhaustion reflected in his eyes. The two pencils that he had taken from his desk that morning were lying on the table in front of him, as was the yellow pad of paper—covered with writing—and an open case file, its black-and-white contents littered about the desk.

Scully stepped inside, her eyes searching his as she neared the table. He watched her movements, silently begging her to forgive him, to understand. She looked down at the table, at the pictures and the scrawls covering the pad, at the suit jacket thrown on the floor behind the chair, at the glasses that lay near his elbow, and at the darkness in the room, until finally she drew her eyes back to his. After a long moment of unasked questions suspended between them, she reached down and began sliding the pictures and typed sheets back into the open folder. Mulder closed his eyes and slid his face back down into his hands. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingertips and sighed quietly.

"May I ask what happened here?" A voice asked from the doorway.

Scully twisted, startled, having completely forgotten that Skinner was behind her. She turned back to look at Mulder, but he merely shook his head in his hands and did not answer, so she walked over to the doorway where Skinner stood and lowered her voice.

"I think we both know what happened here, sir. I would like to request permission to take Agent Mulder home now, and have him answer any questions when he's rested, later."

Skinner nodded. "Not tonight. But I want you to find out from him what happened in the BSU this morning, Scully, and I expect you both in my office at eight a.m. sharp tomorrow morning. Understood?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then. Good night, Agent Scully."

"Good night, sir."

Pressing his lips together, Skinner looked over her head at Mulder, looked down at her, and then turned on his heel and strode away. Drawing in a deep breath, she turned back around and walked over to the table. Mulder rubbed his eyes and then looked up at her as she came over to stand next to him and began clearing up the things strewn across the table.

"Scully...I know you're angry at me—"

"Actually, amazingly enough, Mulder, I'm not. What I am is frustrated, and tired, and it's late, and you know what? Yes, yes I am angry!" She pushed the last of the pictures into the folder and slapped it shut. "What are you doing in here? Why didn't you tell me what happened this morning? Why didn't you come right back down to our office when you left the BSU, Mulder? Why can't you trust me enough to tell me what's wrong with you? Why—oh, I can't talk about this right now. You can't talk about this right now. You need rest—Mulder, you look horrible."

Mulder pushed his face back into his hands, his shoulders slumped.

"I'm sorry, Scully," he sighed, his words muffled through his fingers. He pulled his head up and looked at her, reddened rims and deep lines showing under his eyes. "I needed to be alone...I knew I couldn't think in the office with you around—"

"Am I that big of a distraction that you couldn't have just told me you wanted peace and quiet and trusted me enough to respect that? If you remember, you had me working on mountains of paperwork, so we would've been perfect together—you curled up in your corner, and me in mine." She scowled, then sighed, realizing that they both were too tired to argue coherently.

"It wasn't that, Scully. If...anything happened...while I was working, I didn't want you to worry."

"What did you think might happen? Do you think I wasn't already worried, not knowing what you had gone through two days ago, and today not knowing what you were doing in the BSU? Do you think it was any easier having Skinner come down here at the end of the day and tell me that he didn't know where you were, that no one had seen you for _hours_ , and that you had _collapsed_ up there? Mulder, what are you doing to yourself?"

"Nothing, Scully. I'm just trying to stop another murder from happening. Another innocent child from dying."

She was silent for a long moment, and then she reached down behind his chair and picked up the fallen suit jacket. She held it out to him.

"Here."

Pushing himself to his feet beside her, he took the coat from her outstretched hand. She picked up the things on the desk, handed him his glasses after he shrugged himself into the suit jacket, and then she walked out of the room. She went into the X-Files office and dropped the folder and the other items on his desk, letting her eyes come to a stop on them.

Scully was so frustrated; all at once she wanted to hold her exhausted partner and let him rest, and she wanted to yell at him for his bull-headedness—but she couldn't begrudge his selflessness at putting everyone above himself. He was incredibly irritating at times, yet so gentle at others. He clung to his work and his ideas with childish intensity, but at the most unexpected of times could pull himself back objectively. Now, he was wrapped up tightly in solving this series of deaths, so tightly that he disregarded his own well-being to pursue it. He was working to drive himself to exhaustion despite his own recent attack. She wanted to scream and run and stay and cry and be stoic all at once.

She hated the emotional roller coaster ride this situation was sending her on, so she snapped when Mulder came up behind her and reached past her to pick up the folder. She slapped his hand away and spun around to scowl at him.

"No! Leave it be, Mulder!"

He jumped, surprised at her sudden bark. The skin around his eyes tightened in frustration.

"Scully, I can't leave it! More people will die!"

"You can _not_ keep working on it, Mulder—you are not even well enough to stay awake, to think—"

"Don't say that," he hissed at her. "I can think through this just fine. I just need more time!"

Scully narrowed her eyes and a sudden hunch about the way that he had responded made her turn around to look down at the yellow pad on the desk—filled with Mulder's writing. She started when she began to read it—it was not filled with the hurried but purposeful writing that she had seen in his previous criminal profiles; it was filled with aimless sentences, disjointed comments on the pictures, and a phrase that was repeated several times on the first page, alone: _Can't pull it together!_

As she scanned the writing, a cold feeling worked its way down from the back of her neck to her stomach. She swallowed and turned to look up at her partner. There was only pleading in his eyes.

"Please..." he begged.

She set her lips and shook her head, still frustrated, as fear crept into her mind. Something was terribly wrong with her partner. Something more than the beating and the memory loss. Something that she had no explanation for.

"No, Mulder," she answered. "You're exhausted, you went through a serious physical trauma only a little more than forty-eight hours ago, and you are definitely not well." He opened his mouth to protest, but she plowed on. "Look at yourself, Mulder! What good can you be to those people if you can't even stand up without shaking! I can't even begin to understand why you spent the entire day in that cramped little closet forcing yourself to analyze this case, when you _knew_ that something was wrong with you."

"But, Scully—"

"No! I'm sick of standing helplessly by and watching you slowly killing yourself! You can't see past the end of your guilt complex and your stubborn idea of being the be-all and end-all of answers, Mulder! You are not some tragic hero doomed to self-sacrifice to save the masses! Stop!"

She cut herself off, knowing that she was snapping, and gave a weary shake of her head.

Mulder's own resolve to fight his angry partner was slipping away as the strains of the long day began to cloud his mind. He closed his eyes and sighed.

"Scully...the whole day...I haven't been able to put anything together for the whole day. My mind...is just, I don't know, sluggish," he said quietly, reaching up to rub his temples. "I don't—I _can't_ —think fast enough!"

"You're tired..."

"No. No, it's not just that." Mulder stopped and opened his eyes, unable to define why he had spent the entire day fighting with his own mind, fighting to see the connections that had always been so clear and quick to him before. Before the glaring hole in his memory of the previous two days, and before his lost memories of Samantha...

He squeezed his eyes shut, by now accustomed to the corresponding wave of pain whenever he tried to remember his sister. Not only was his mind exhausted, so was his body and spirit. Scully reached out to touch his arms and he opened his eyes to reassure her.

"I'm fine," he said.

Scully eyed him for a moment, both amused and chilled by his answer. They had each become more like the other over their years together—his response was an echo of her own false assurances. Both knew that neither of them was 'fine'. It was the saying of it that protected them from being crushed under the weight—and kept them at arm's length.

"C'mon, we both need to go home, get some sleep," she said. "I'm staying at your place again tonight—I don't like the idea that you're still suffering unexplained collapses two days after the fact."

"I told you, Scully, they're not because of the...beating in my apartment."

"Right, it was the brain-sucking aliens at the mental hospital." She caught herself, grimaced. "Oh Mulder, I'm sorry. I'm just... tired."

"So'm I."

"C'mon, then. We're leaving."

"Two nights in a row at my place, Scully?" Mulder let a small grin tug at the corners of his mouth. "You realize how that'll look?"

Her eyes sparkled. "No worse than staying one night will, Mulder. Besides, I doubt that anything we do—or don't do—will lessen the effect on the rumor mills. Just the fact that we're alone down here in the basement for most of the day is enough for imaginations to run wild."

Mulder leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Whose imaginations?"

Scully jumped back, her eyes wide. She pushed her emotions down quickly and set her mouth in a flat line, her weariness returning in full force.

"Let's go."

She moved away from him, leaving no room for argument, and went over to her own area.

Mulder stood watching her for a moment, battling his emotions and cursing himself for not thinking before acting. She gathered up her things, waited for him to get his, and then walked out of their office. He paused as he turned to flip off the lights, but then he stepped out and locked the door behind him, leaving the case file behind, and with a quiet sigh, he followed her down the hallway.


	5. The Gauntlet

_5_

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

7:55 A.M.

Skinner sat forward in his seat behind the commanding oak desk and lifted his morning coffee to take a sip. The memos his secretaries had left from last night stood in a neat pile on the side of his desk, and a stack of manila folders sat next to his elbow, unopened. They would be looked at, in time, but right now was reserved for a few moments of peace, before the day started in earnest.

He skimmed through a copy of the case that Mulder had been called up to the BSU on the day before. It was descriptions of a series of killings, yet another entry into Skinner's list of headaches and responsibilities. The BSU agents were putting all of their energy into profiling the murderer, but after two months of fruitless attempts, they had not managed to arrive at any conclusive description, and as a last resort, had called Mulder in to help. Now, it seemed, even Mulder, the best criminal profiler that the FBI had in its arsenal, was unable to get an edge on the killer. Skinner stopped his reading at the picture of the little girl, letting his thoughts rest on another child whom he had never met, but who had affected his own life in countless ways—Samantha Mulder.

When Fox Mulder was twelve years old, he had witnessed the abduction of his eight-year-old sister, Samantha. Whether his purported memories of aliens and eerie floating lights could be attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder was irrelevant; Mulder's lifelong search for his missing sister had driven him to investigate innumerable leads, many of which had left very uncomfortable situations directly on Skinner's doorstep. Mulder had an unnerving habit of skimming too close to some inconvenient truths, and there were men in powerful positions who wanted him contained. Officially, it was Skinner's job to keep a leash on his maverick agent. Unofficially, Skinner took on the task of letting that leash out as far as possible, all while maintaining plausible deniability.

Skinner sighed and took another sip from the steaming mug, swallowing slowly. In less than five minutes his day would officially begin, and two people that were more important to him than he cared to admit would walk through that side door, to explain to him why they were as yet unable to find the killer of this innocent little girl. No, no they would speak to more than that—only they wouldn't speak with words.

He held the mug, cupping it in both hands, and looked towards the door that opened into his office from the secretaries' spaces. He dreaded this meeting, as he dreaded each of the ones that he knew would follow, until—

Skinner swung his head back around and lifted the cup to his lips, gulping down the rest of the coffee. There was no use in worrying about the future. The future wasn't set in stone, and he refused to believe that they could not find a way to help Dana Scully. Pushing the thoughts out of his mind, he turned to what he could control: what he would say to his best investigative team.

He wasn't quite sure what to expect, really. Mulder was brilliant but volatile, and Skinner was sure that this situation would resolve itself as every other one did, in some unpredictable way. Yesterday afternoon, Agent Johnson had reported the facts to him. Recalling that meeting, Skinner set his lips in a straight line. Johnson had left having given the Assistant Director a distinct impression of listening to a tattle-telling child, gloating over the fall of the teacher's favorite. Skinner had almost physically kicked the man out of his office, but restrained himself and settled for a cold, "That's all, Agent Johnson." Not even a 'thank-you'. The man wasn't worth it.

Skinner felt a surge of anger towards those in the Bureau who treated Mulder as if he were a lunatic to be ignored, except when they wanted to use him to do their dirty work for them. Skinner had never expected to find himself caring about the man, but after nearly five years of seeing Mulder doggedly pursue the truth, even when it cost him dearly, it was difficult not to respect and want to protect him.

Skinner wasn't the only one: his thoughts shifted back to Scully and her unbending loyalty to her partner. It was her faith in Mulder that had begun to turn Skinner's own attitude away from the disdain he had once held for the unorthodox agent. Any other person would have abandoned Mulder at the first chance—every other person _had._ Dana Scully was different, _a woman who doesn't deserve the pain she has suffered. Neither of them—_

The speaker on his desk beeped.

"Sir, Agents Mulder and Scully are here to see you."

"Thank you. Send them in, please."

Skinner put his mug down and flipped the cover of the folder closed, then sat back in his chair. He watched the two agents silently make their way into the room; Scully coming in first, Mulder close behind her, one hand automatically on the small of her back, unconsciously guiding her, then removed from her to close the door behind them. They walked over to the two seats in front of the desk and sat down. Skinner looked at them for a moment, trying to gauge their mood, but noticed only that both carried themselves slowly, looking somewhat tired. It was becoming normal for them; the combination of her cancer and years of fruitless searching wearing down on them both. They had uncovered more questions than answers, and the answers led them nowhere.

Scully broke the silence, drawing Skinner out of his thoughts.

"Sir?"

"Agents Scully, Mulder, thank you for coming. I assume that you have spent some time discussing this situation." Outwardly, he was always formal, keeping his distance. "To the point: what happened to Agent Mulder yesterday?"

The two agents shared a quick glance, and then Scully cleared her throat and looked down at her lap.

Mulder spoke first. "Sir, we are currently investigating the reasons behind my collapse..." Mulder shifted in his seat, speaking in a clinically-detached monotone. "I believe that it is the result of post-traumatic stress, combined with a lack of sleep, and the added pressure of profiling the killer or killers involved in the case I began with the VCS yesterday."

"So you are saying that you're unable to work, Agent Mulder?"

"No, sir. What I'm saying is that I am feeling more rested this morning, and that I _am_ able to work," Mulder replied evenly. Scully pressed her lips together in what Skinner could only interpret as annoyance. He sat back and steepled his fingers.

"No, Agent Mulder, what you're saying is that you don't know why you collapsed yesterday."

Mulder was silent, his expression unreadable. Suddenly, Scully sat forward in her chair, as if having abruptly come to a decision. She looked excited and her eyes were bright—the weariness temporarily gone.

"Sir?"

Skinner nodded for her to speak.

"I believe that the answers can be found by investigating Agent Mulder, sir."

Mulder started in his chair and Skinner narrowed his eyes.

"Scully, what are you—" Mulder choked out.

Scully stood up, suddenly, surprising both of the men.

"Sir, could I have a word with Agent Mulder for a moment?"

Skinner quickly regained his demeanor and made a small hand motion. Scully started towards the back door of the office that opened into the small hallway outside, and Mulder sprang out of his seat to follow her. From the look on his face, he obviously didn't know what to expect. Skinner's eyes followed them both out of the office. This was turning out to be an interesting morning.

* * *

Mulder pulled the door shut behind him, his eyes wide.

"Scully, what are you doing? Do you realize you just walked us out of Skinner's office without a dismissal?"

"Never mind that, Mulder. I've got an idea."

"Were you planning this all morning, or did it just occur to you in there to cut me off? We never discussed any last-minute outbursts."

"Oh, Mulder, please. Listen: I was thinking about what you told me last night—about your mind being sluggish—"

"You're acting strangely, Scully," Mulder said, leaning down and sniffing at her. She leaned backwards, surprised, her face pulled into a questioning glare.

" _Me?!_ What're you _doing,_ Mulder?"

"Just demonstrating to you that my mind is not currently feeling sluggish...mmm. I was with you all morning; when did you put that on, Scully?" he asked, sniffing at her again.

"And how does this olfactory exercise demonstrate anything about your _mind?_ " Scully asked snidely, straightening back up again, despite her partner's proximity. "Get your nose out of my hair, Mulder."

"My nose isn't _in_ your hair."

"As I was trying to say, you were having trouble thinking..."

"Rose and cinnamon."

"...about the case— _what?!_ "

"Rose and cinnamon. Your perfume."

"Mulder, stop it. I'm trying to finish my thought, here—"

"Oh, so now _your_ mind is feeling sluggish."

"I know someone I want to slug, right now," Scully muttered.

Mulder stepped back, his hands raised in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'm just saying that my mind is most definitely not feeling slow at the moment." He smiled warmly at her and was pleased to notice that a slight flush rose in her cheeks.

"My. Thought. Mulder." She spoke through clenched teeth. "Skinner is back in there _waiting_ for us."

"This was _your_ idea, Scully."

"Mulder!"

"Fine. So let's hear it."

Scully ground her teeth in frustration. He always chose the most inopportune moments to act like a ten-year-old. At least this banter meant that he was in a good mood, which meant that he had gotten some sleep. Bracing herself, she straightened and started to explain an idea that had been forming in her mind all morning.

* * *

Skinner sat behind the desk, wondering what Scully and Mulder were speaking about, when the phone trilled next to his elbow. He picked it up. "Assistant Director Skinner."

There was a long breath exhaled on the other end of the line, and Skinner stiffened.

"They spent the last two nights together at Mulder's apartment, you know."

Skinner gritted his teeth. "Don't you have better things to be doing?"

_Click._

He put the phone down slowly, his eyes drifting to the closed door on the far side of his office.

* * *

Mulder stood with his arms crossed in front of him, eyebrows furrowed, chewing on his bottom lip. He considered all that Scully had said, not entirely enthusiastic about her idea.

"So...you want to take me to an old professor friend of yours at Quantico to pick my brain. Literally." He frowned in question. "And you think that by approaching this problem I'm having medically, you'll be able to figure out how my brain was sucked."

Scully just gave him a look and continued explaining her idea.

"In this case, Mulder, I suspect that 'sucked' might be the correct term."

His mouth dropped open slightly.

"What am I going to hear next, 'Yes, Mulder, I also think it was E.T.'?"

"No, listen, quickly. We have to get back into the meeting," she replied, excitement coloring her voice. "It took me a while to fall asleep last night on your sticky couch, Mulder, and I spent the time turning the articles in that folder—the one you took out yesterday morning—around in my head. "It wasn't just a case of all of these people living near one another; they all experienced the same symptoms that you speak of: repeated unexplained collapses, loss of memory, loss of reasoning power—"

"Wait. I just said that I _could_ think just fine, Scully."

"Not yesterday, you couldn't. And I noticed that you didn't go anywhere near the BSU case file this morning when we went into the office, Mulder."

"No time before we had to go to see Skinner," he mumbled, looking down at his shoes.

"That's crock and we both know it, Mulder. I heard you in your sleep last night—" Mulder looked up, eyes wide. "—and you were trying to _remember_ your sister, not reliving the same nightmare you have so often." He looked back down at his shoes again as she continued, in a softer voice. "You've called me in the middle of the night often enough to talk about it, and I've heard enough of it coming from your hotel room to know that what I heard last night was not normal for you."

She stepped up to him and put her hands on his folded forearms, and he looked up slowly from her fingers to her face, simultaneously not wanting to hear the truth she spoke and silently thanking whoever was God that he had her, his partner, there to speak it.

"Mulder, please, let me take you to Professor Abanito. We both know that there is more going on here than just post-traumatic stress. "

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to look down into hers. Her eyes traveled involuntarily over the fading bruises on his cheek, and then she looked up at him.

Scully felt somehow lighter when he nodded.

* * *

When they walked back into the office, Mulder caught a rather odd look on Skinner's face for a brief moment, and then it was replaced by the A.D.'s normal unreadable expression. They sat down across from him and Scully explained her thoughts and proposal to Skinner, who gave a slow nod and listened silently throughout her speech. When she was finished, Skinner ordered them to take the next three days off to pursue this avenue of investigation, and to let him know as soon as possible what the results of the testing were. After they walked out of the office, the two agents left Skinner to his own thoughts and questions, and those plagued him for the rest of the day.

That phone call hadn't meant anything. He didn't care.

* * *

ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIC LABORATORY

QUANTICO MILITARY INSTALLATION

11:30 A.M.

"I can't believe I'm letting you do this to me, Scully," Mulder said petulantly, scratching at the edges of the adhesive goop that Professor Nathan Abanito had dabbed onto his forehead, over both of his eyebrows and at various strategic points around his skull.

The goop felt cold on his skin, and the sensation wasn't helped by the fact that his hair was dripping wet and the stitches on the back of his neck were itching furiously. He knew that meant the wound was healing, but the knowledge didn't alleviate his irritation. He was lying on his back on a thinly-padded table and he craned his neck to look over at his partner. Scully was sitting on the counter across from him and he swore he could see a little smile on her face. Frightening woman.

"It's the only way to get to the cause of your collapses, Mulder. Dr. Abanito has some interesting new methods that he wants to try out for graphing and mapping the brain, so just sit still and bear it."

"I don't want to sit still—this stuff is _cold,_ Scully."

"It gives that sensation, Mr. Mulder, because it contains about eighteen percent ethyl alcohol, to clean the skin so the sensors won't be contaminated. Please put your head back down." Abanito walked around him and pushed another lead onto the side of his head, above his ear. Mulder had the sudden urge to start shaking his head like a dog, spraying the impassive Abanito and that smug little redhead with water and goopy adhesive. He repressed it.

"So, what are you going to zap me with?"

"We won't be 'zapping' you with anything Mr. Mulder. We'll simply be taking readings on the electrical output of your brain's functions and mapping them with a computer program to form a three-dimensional energy-level reading of your brain."

"Dr. Abanito, how long will this process take?" Scully slid forward on the counter slightly, her short legs hanging over the edge, gently swinging back and forth.

"What, do you have a date, Scully?" Mulder smirked.

"Well, the preliminary setup has to be calibrated to his wavelengths—you said you have an eidetic memory, Mr. Mulder?"

"Just 'Mulder', please. And yeah—unfortunately."

"I suppose there are drawbacks, uh, Mulder, but the abilities you have! I am very interested in the readings that your brain will give us. Even now, with our technology, we still don't have any idea how the 'photographic' memories can store information with such accuracy. It is a rare ability, and it goes a long way towards explaining your success as a profiler."

"And my reputation," Mulder muttered, glancing at Scully. She only met his eyes and gave him a tight smile, so he turned back to the dark-skinned professor. "So how long did you say it would take?"

"The preliminary calibration will only take about five minutes, and then the electroencephalogram—the EEG—will take about two hours. After that, we'll run six or seven tests, depending on how much more data we need to accumulate before we can establish a theory about your symptoms, and we'll be done. I'd say no more than eight or nine hours."

"I'm going to have to lay on this thing for _eight hours_?!" Mulder whined, shooting a glare at Scully. She pushed herself off the counter and walked around behind his head to stand on the other side of the table.

"What are you complaining about? People do it every night."

"At least _they_ can move their heads, Scully." He grimaced at her, and once again fought the urge to reach back and itch the stitches. If he did, he'd probably knock some wire or another and screw up the whole thing.

"You'll only be lying here for two hours," Abanito said. "You'll have more freedom of movement during the tests."

Mulder made a face at Scully. "Why do you look so happy?"

Scully rolled her eyes. She was feeling anything but happy. She had told him about the deaths and the comatose patients that morning on the way to the Bureau and he had listened silently. She couldn't understand his attitude right now; he seemed to be acting like an irritated child, not the serious man who knew that this process could save his life. The memories of his painful struggle last night were still fresh in her mind. She could not forget his cries to remember his own sister's face—a face that had haunted his dreams in achingly clear detail since the night Samantha was taken from him.

Scully frowned. She would give anything to see Mulder content and happy with his life. In their four-and-a-half years together, she had watched him become progressively more weighted down, weary, and cynical, fighting demons that tore at his mind and spirit with unrelenting brutality. She was helpless against the horrors he carried with him, and she knew he felt likewise about her—her cancer ate away at him as steadily as it bit into her own body.

Straightening with a sigh, she set the thoughts aside and looked across at Abanito, who was fiddling with the last of the leads. He finished his movements next to Mulder's head, then reached up and pulled a moving arm with a light fixture on the end of it down from the ceiling. He positioned it directly over Mulder's eyes and fiddled with it for a second, then smiled benignly down at Mulder's annoyed expression.

"Just lie still and relax, Mulder. Please close your eyes."

Mulder took a deep breath and glanced over towards Scully, who had moved behind the glass in the other room, and was standing behind a row of monitors and computer screens, waiting for Abanito to join her. Mulder no longer had to perform a lighthearted dance for her and he let the heaviness return to rest on his chest. He turned his head back up to look at the metal arm hanging over his head and then closed his eyes, Scully's words from their car ride that morning ringing in his ears.

_"They're all dead, Mulder. Except for five...and they're all in a coma."_

* * *

1:25 P.M.

Scully looked up from the EEG needle moving placidly back and forth along the sheet of paper and let out a small sigh. She moved across the small space filled with computers, pieces of paper, and various graphing equipment, and stood next to the glass window between her and the room Mulder was in, watching the light flashing rapidly onto her partner's closed eyelids. Mulder was lying quietly on the table—Abanito had told him to try not to think about anything; sleeping was preferable. Scully had raised her eyebrows at that comment, knowing that Mulder asleep was often more volatile than Mulder awake, but she trusted her partner enough to know that he would follow Abanito's instructions as well as he could. Watching him now, she doubted that he was actually sleeping. The readings on the EEG suggested that he was thinking, but not about anything stressful. She couldn't help but wonder what it was.

"How's it coming?" she asked quietly, walking over to stand next to Abanito, who was writing a series of notes down on a pad of paper. He looked up when she sat down on the rolling stool next to him.

"Five and half more minutes. He settled down quickly, much to my relief."

Scully nodded and looked back through the glass again. She had to echo Abanito's statement; Mulder had been skittish, even for him. She hoped that they would be able to find out what he was suffering from. She wanted him back.

"He's your partner, isn't he?"

She looked around, startled out of her reverie. After a moment of enduring her former professor's steady gaze, she returned to looking out through the glass. She had always found Abanito to be honest, and to expect the same honesty from his students. When she had taken his neurology course to complete her requirements at Quantico, they had formed a kind of friendship during that semester, and then later, during one of her early autopsies, when she turned to him again for his professional knowledge.

"Yes."

She replied without turning her head. She had the feeling that Abanito would see that she and Mulder were closer than just work partners. He could probably see that without her looking directly at him; during her months of working with him, she had found him to be eerily perceptive at times. His quiet, assured demeanor had been a strength for her, someone who would listen without speaking meaningless words in reply. When the whole painful situation with Jack Willis had come to an end, Abanito hadn't turned his nose up, like so many others in the school had. It had been a humiliating thing for her relationship with her own instructor to be exposed, and for her to be the one to suffer for it. When Abanito returned her exam the next afternoon, a scripture verse had been written next to her grade: _Psalm 40._

It had taken her a few moments to recognize what it was—the '40' had scared her half to death, until she realize it _wasn't_ the grade—and when she went back to her apartment, it took her another half an hour before she could find the Bible that her parents had given to her as a Confirmation present. It was stuffed in a box in the back of her closet, and she felt a slight pang of guilt—the last dregs of the old Catholicism that she had left behind to live a purely scientific and rational life as a medical student. To her surprise, the psalm was not a condemning one—she had read it again and again, and for those few minutes after the pain of the storm, she found a brief peace.

"What's bothering you, Dana?"

Scully sighed and shook her head. Abanito put down his pencil and looked through the glass with her. She knew what he was probably thinking—that she had made the same mistake again, that she was involved with her professional partner in an unprofessional way. She pressed her lips together and fought back a rush of emotions, looking at Mulder's still form. She had never had a closer friend, and she swore that she would never do anything to jeopardize that friendship, no matter what past mistakes she had made. She was an accomplished medical doctor now, not an unsteady young college student grasping for a man and his approval.

"Does he know about your cancer?"

She started, not prepared for the question, and belatedly realized that Abanito wasn't thinking as she expected him to. He never had—he was always different, real.

"How do you know about it?"

Abanito looked down at his pad of notes for several seconds, then back up to her.

"Dana Scully is a brilliant pathologist; even now at the Academy, you are a remembered name... I found out about your hospitalization from my wife—Antoinette was one of your attending nurses, Dana. She was doing her residency in Allentown last year, until a position opened up here at GW, and we'd drive to see each other on the weekends. One night several months ago she called me and asked me to pray for a young woman—she described you, without speaking your name, and I knew. When I heard a cafeteria rumor a few days later, it just confirmed it."

"Yes, he knows," Scully answered, "and he blames himself for it. Even I—" Scully took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She looked down at her hands, a deep weariness seeping into her bones. "Sometimes I have felt a fleeting shock of anger at him—he's so bull-headed at times, Abanito. But then, my rational side gets back ahold of me, and I know that I can't blame him. I...I don't know..."

"I will keep you in my prayers, both of you."

Scully looked up at him, sincerely grateful for such a promise. He smiled and she felt some part of the weight lifting off of her tired shoulders.

"Thank you, Abanito."

"Oh, don't thank me—thank God." He chuckled, and looked over at the monitor next to his head. "Ahhh, it's almost—right...now." The timer went off next to them, and the computer beeped its agreement. Scully pushed herself up.

"I'll go wake him up."

"It's time for lunch. I'm going to order in. What are you in the mood for? Chinese? Pizza?"

"Let me go ask Mulder—after all, he's the one who has to eat with all those wires attached to his head."

"You have a point."

Scully walked out of the cramped little room to awaken her partner.

* * *

8:50 P.M.

The egg rolls had come and gone, and the uninspired plain cheese pizza for dinner had been finished only two hours ago, leaving the empty box with its faint grease stains folded and lying propped up next to the small wastebasket. Scully sat back and stretched her arms out behind her head, yawning widely, her short sleeves sliding down to her shoulders.

"Are we done?"

"Finally." Abanito was sitting in front of his computers, collating all of his data, and combining the results of the previous seven hours' worth of tests into one massive file that the software would use to build its model of Mulder's brain. He was going to be hunched in front of the three computer screens, his fingers flying over the keyboard and flicking the mouse, for another several minutes.

"Is it all right if I go out and get Mulder cleaned up, now?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Abanito mumbled from his perch, his eyes running up and down the rows and columns of readings. "I'll call you both in here when I get this thing where I want it. Ten, fifteen minutes, max."

"He needs to wash out his hair, do you have any—"

"Second drawer down, middle cupboard under the counter. Warm water first, to dissolve the adhesive, then whatever else he wants. Don't worry about getting the sensor tips wet—they'll dry off."

"Okay, thanks."

Abanito was lost in his typing again.

Scully walked out of the cramped area and into the room where Mulder had been sitting, pacing, writing, reading, reciting, memorizing, and mumbling incoherently for the past seven hours. They had pushed the EEG equipment off to the side of the room after lunch, and the padded cushions had been pulled off to make a flat tabletop in the middle, for the written testing. Mulder was currently sitting before it, staring listlessly into space. She came up behind him in her stockinged feet—having long since removed her heels—and gave his back a little rub with her palm, a weak apology for the long day she had made him endure.

Mulder dropped his head down and relaxed, ignoring the slight sting of the stitches. Anything was worth enduring for a few moments of having Scully next to him, her warm hand on his back. Seven hours of answering questions, imagining scenarios, performing memory exercises, and wearing his mind into what felt like a heavy lump inside his head...several times he had forgotten the wires were attached, unfortunately reminded when he tried to reach up and itch a spot, only to find it covered with something other than hair.

Twice, his thoughts had strayed to Samantha, and he had stopped his movements and dropped like a stone into the chair to hold his aching head, until the pain drifted away. On the last test, the inductive reasoning questions, his mind had refused to yield up answers that he knew should have been simple otherwise. In that whole last forty minutes, he had only managed to answer three questions. The answers had come to him slowly, trickling into his awareness like reluctant rivulets of seawater, salty and stinging in their emergence. Now all that he wanted to do was lie here with his arms on the table, his head drooped forward, and his eyes closed in relative peace while those small, sure hands rubbed over his shoulders.

His scalp itched and he tried to ignore it, but the skin protested more loudly, so he put his hand up to scratch the spot—only to run his fingers into the adhesive and wire stuck there. He sighed in frustration, and lifted his head. Scully's hands pulled away, leaving his skin feeling cooler under the cotton shirt.

"C'mon, we need to clean that gunk out of your hair."

She walked around the table and bent to rummage under the counter, and after pulling a bottle of shampoo out of the cupboard, she found a folded towel. Mulder pushed himself out of the chair and walked over to the counter she was putting everything on, next to the large sink with the high, curved faucet. The wires were long enough to accommodate the movement, but he would be happy when they were gone entirely, and he could give his whole scalp a thorough scratch.

Scully turned on the water, letting it run over her fingers until she was satisfied, and then gently pulled Mulder over to the front of the sink. He started to bend down, but she put a hand on his arm.

"Roll up your sleeves," she instructed, turning to inspect the sensors and adhesive as she considering the fastest—and gentlest—way to pull them off. Mulder's hair had dried from the wet, dripping strands into a slightly wavy mass of uncombed brown, punctuated only by the evenly-spaced sensors. He looked like a Medusa, with red-and-white snakes curling about his head.

"I'm done," Mulder said, finishing his sleeves and trying vainly not to start tearing out the wires and scratching like a dog with fleas. When she nodded, he bent down to rest his forearms on the edge of the sink.

Scully's hands rested on his hair and she guided his head down under the faucet. The water felt wonderful, running all over his skin, and Scully's ministrations weren't hurting the situation, either. He would have liked nothing more than to fall asleep at that exact moment, and he sighed as his eyes fell closed.

One by one, she unclipped the wires and pulled off the sensor leads, lining them up on the counter next to her. She was meticulous and gentle as she washed the remaining bits of adhesive out of his hair. The warm water softened and then dissolved the mixture, until her fingers had pushed out the last bits and Mulder had almost dozed off about half a dozen times.

Scully finished picking the leads out Mulder's hair, not letting herself think about anything but the process at hand. She was tired, and she didn't feel like dealing with such small and annoying things as the little prickling emotions that kept making her swallow when she looked down at her partner's face, his eyes closed and his expression so peaceful and content under the stream of water running over her hands and his hair. Years seemed to have washed away from his face, lines smoothing out, tension relaxing. She was inwardly startled to remember that he was only thirty-six; at times he seemed to her ages older.

_Adhesive—wash out the adhesive. He's too exhausted to do it himself. Get that bit, there...straighten the strands, tug the lead off..._

She lost herself in the repetition of the movements, and without consciously thinking about it, she suddenly found herself picking up the towel from next to him on the counter and turning off the water, having finished rinsing the adhesive and the shampoo from his hair. She hadn't even remembered putting the shampoo in, but there were the suds, quickly disappearing down into the sink. She touched his shoulder, and he pulled away from the sink slowly, his eyes still closed, allowing her to drape the towel over his darkened, wet hair. He straightened up, rubbing his head to dry it.

When Scully let out a long sigh, Mulder opened his eyes to look down at her from within the edges of the towel. In silence, he watched her turn back to the counter and clean up, put away the bottle, gather up the leads, and wipe down the countertop with a paper towel. She moved efficiently, her actions thorough and deliberate as she cleaned the area of any remaining suds or specks. When she walked away to fit the wires back into their proper slots on the carrier, he bent over give his head a good rubbing. It no longer itched anywhere, a glorious feeling compared to the last nine agonizing hours.

* * *

9:05 P.M.

"What we have here—" Abanito pointed to a blue-tinged spot on the screen, "—is one of the two areas that I've pinpointed as possible reasons why you're experiencing these blackouts."

Mulder was exhausted, but he summoned the energy to look at the spots Abanito was indicating. It was a rather odd feeling to be looking at his brain in a three-dimensional moving computer representation, complete with a 16-million-color mapping to indicate the changing energy levels he used for various tasks. The image had clearly delineated the lobes of his brain, and Scully was busy studying the colors in each lobe. From his psychologist's training, he had a basic working knowledge of the brain, but as his own brain wasn't functioning too smoothly at the moment, he didn't bother to try and remember anything significant. Visions of falling asleep on the car ride home kept floating through his mind...

"—and you mentioned two main things in our interview this morning—"

"Seems likes ages ago," Mulder murmured.

Scully rubbed his shoulder for a moment, knowing that he needed sleep. So did she, for that matter. But it would wait until after they found out—or at least gathered some idea—of what had happened to him.

"Yes...we have been here for hours." Abanito took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose for a moment, then replaced them. "Only a few more minutes, and then we can all go home. At least for now."

"I see the bluish-red areas you indicated, Abanito, and from what I understand, those two lobes have damaged cellular tissue," Scully said, frowning.

"Hence, they're not producing at the level of synaptic energy that they should be." Abanito nodded and tapped a key to turn the image around, pointing as he spoke. "Here, and here. What you mentioned this morning is significant, Mulder. You said you have noticed two main problems, which the testing showed quantitatively: your inductive reasoning abilities are seriously stunted, and you are having trouble remembering your sister. Is that correct?"

Mulder looked down at his hands as a tightness welled up in his chest, and he swallowed, then nodded. "Whenever I try—inadvertently or on purpose—I end up with a wave of pain. It eventually passes...but there's still an ache there." He rubbed a spot on the back of his head.

"What do you mean, 'there'?" Abanito asked with a frown. "You can actually feel its location?"

Mulder nodded and Abanito blinked in thought, swiveling back to look at the computer screen. He tapped a few keys, and the image disappeared to be replaced by a matrix of numbers. Scully's jaw dropped slightly and after a long moment, Abanito tapped a key, replacing the screen with a different set of numbers. It looked like gibberish to Mulder's tired mind and he didn't like the shocked expression on Scully's face.

"What? What is it?"

"Mulder—your synapses...in just these two areas of your parietal and occipital lobes, the energy-level readings are nearly non-existent..." Scully trailed off, her voice hoarse.

Abanito broke his gaze away from the screen of numbers and cleared his throat when he saw the frightened look on Mulder's face.

"It's not as bad as Dana's making it out to be—her interpretation is correct, but from the image the computer created—" he tapped a key and the 3-D image reappeared, "the visual association area—the one your memories of your sister would be stored in—is, well...the synaptic connections seem to be reforming, a few of them at least. That's completely amazing, that your mind is able to do that after incurring such a trauma. How did this happen, anyway? This type of energy drain is highly selective. It doesn't happen spontaneously, and there's no evidence here to indicate you have an infection or a virus..." Abanito trailed off in thought.

"What about the reasoning area?" Mulder managed to ask.

"The gnostic area—" Scully pointed to the second bluish-red spot, "—that's also called the 'common integrative area', or where you put together your thoughts—its energy-level readings are definitely below norms, but from the data here, it also seems to be repairing itself. Very slowly, but it's healing." Scully let out a breath and turned to look at him, shook her head. "I can't even begin to understand how your mind could do that, but it is."

"Amazing, just amazing..." Abanito broke out of his mumbling and turn to look at Mulder. "By all rights, you should be in a coma right now."

Both Mulder and Scully started at that statement. They shared a look, remembering their conversation that morning, and then Mulder turned back to Abanito.

"A coma?" Mulder whispered. "Why aren't I?"

"I honestly don't know," Abanito shook his head. "The only—slightly unorthodox—guess that I could make is that it is somehow related to the powerful abilities of your eidetic brain. Your mind is repairing itself, and I suggest that you get as much rest as possible for the next few days. I want you to come back in a week and have another EEG done. Dana said that you have had them done in the past, and we can compare the older readings to what you have now, so we'll know how to judge that you're fully ready to return to work."

"I can't leave that case behind while I sleep out the week in my apartment," Mulder protested, albeit weakly. He really couldn't let the serial killings continue and just rest in bed, but he was so tired at this point that all he could think of was falling asleep.

"We'll work something out, Mulder," Scully said quietly. She knew he was fighting to stay awake, but that he was serious about the profile. "Tomorrow."

Mulder recognized his body's needs and acquiesced. "One week from today, then. Ten in the morning, again?"

"Yes," Abanito replied, watching as Mulder slipped on the edge of the stool, then righted himself. "You need to go home. Both of you. If I find anything else, I'll include it in my message tomorrow morning. Now scram."

Mulder dragged himself up and Scully slung her bag over her shoulder.

"Thanks for everything, Professor Abanito," Mulder said, sticking out his hand. Abanito smiled and shook it firmly.

"You're welcome. Now please follow my advice and get some sleep, okay?"

Scully smiled wearily and took Mulder's arm, and he let her lead him out of the office.

Abanito watched them leave through the laboratory, walking out slowly. When they reached the door, Dana paused and Mulder stepped forward to open it, then rested his hand lightly on her back as she went out ahead of him. The whole movement had an air of long habit, as if neither were truly conscious of doing it, and it made Abanito smile.

The door swung closed and the professor spoke a quiet prayer for the pair, then returned to analyzing the data.


	6. Hungry

_6_

_"I'm hungry."_

_"Oh, shush."_

_"I am!"_

_"We all are, Jo. Your whining isn't helping anything."_

_"Why can't we go look for something to eat?"_

_"Because we have enough from our last meal to ration out for another week. We don't need to go out yet."_

_"You're just afraid."_

_"Jo..."_

_"Oh, stop arguing, both of you. We've gone over this ten times before—it takes too much energy to go exploring again!"_

_"So, what, we're just going to sit here and ration out the little bit that's left until we all wither away?"_

_"We do need to find something before we run out, Bertha."_

_"We'll just eat little bits and pieces and we won't do anything too strenuous."_

_"Peg, I'm sick of just sitting here and waiting for the nurses to come and stick me back in bed, where I wait for them to come and take me back out again. Sometimes they forget to turn us towards the windows, and then we're stuck looking at a wall all day long. I'm bored...and I'm hungry."_

_"Perhaps...we should just make a little trip."_

_"Sarah, I thought we had decided after last time with the fox not to suck anyone dry again."_

_"We didn't suck him dry, Peg."_

_"That's only because we didn't have enough room to store the energy."_

_"I'm so hungry, I could eat him whole!"_

_"Jo!"_

_"Well I could!"_

_"You can no more do that than you could have eaten a horse when your body was able to eat on its own, Jo, and you know it."_

_"Then we'll keep him quiet for a little while; we'll have bits at a time, go out, and have some fun again!"_

_"No...please...Jo, Bertha! You promised not to do it again."_

_"We were full and we wanted to shut you up, Peg."_

_"Oh, Jackie, that was mean!"_

_"You're a weak-minded fool, Peg. You never should have been allowed to join us."_

_"I'm just as much your sister as everyone else is!"_

_"Oh, both of you, shush!"_

_"Well, I'm hungry, Bertha, and I want to go out and find some food."_

_"I'm hungry too, Bertie."_

_"Me too."_

_"So'm I."_

_"I know...but what can we do? If we draw too much attention, they'll separate us..."_

_"I wouldn't mind if they took Peg away."_

_"Oh, shut up, Jo."_

_"You shut up!"_

_"Both of you, shut up. Bertha's right."_

_"But what use is rationing if we can't_ do _anything? We might as well separate and let our bodies die."_

_"Then we need to go out again."_

_"Only the fox. He has enough for us to live for a long time and have fun again!"_

_"No! You remember what we drew from him!"_

_"Yes! Lots and lots!"_

_"Jo...you felt it all, didn't you? All of the rejection and pain that came with the energy? Didn't you? Well, don't ignore me! Didn't you?!"_

_"It doesn't matter...that went away."_

_"Sarah, I was in agony! Usually it's just a bit of worry, that itch of wondering whether they could pay a bill or keep a lover happy—but this time it really hurt! I was aching for hours afterwards."_

_"You're always overemotional anyways, Peg."_

_"What about you, Bertie?"_

_"I...think that I'm sick and tired of sitting here calculating how long we have left at our current rations. I want to do something again."_

_"But it's wrong! ...don't you all look at me like that."_

_"Why protest now, Peg? After all these years? If you don't want to be involved, why don't you just separate and ease your conscience and die by yourself? We're hungry."_

_"Yes, why don't you? That'll be more for the rest of us."_

_"If I wasn't here to stop you all, you'd have no conscience!"_

_"Oh, blast it all, Peg! What do you think you are, some kind of saint or something? You've done your share of Reaches."_

_"I—I didn't like it."_

_"Hah. You ate with as much gusto as the rest of us. So come off your high pedestal, and help us figure out a way to get the fox back."_

_"And his pretty partner, the sailor-girl."_

_"We shouldn't have given her energy back."_

_"We made a deal, Jo. We don't shirk on deals."_

_"He made a deal with us...and now I want to collect the rest."_

_"But we only dealt for the part we took."_

_"Peg, you sap, he didn't know that. We could've sucked him dry right there, and he wouldn't have been able to stop us."_

_"JO!"_

_"Jo, you saw how much control he had. He knew us! If he fought, at all, we would have been torn apart!"_

_"We didn't know then how to hold control—we know now. We can all control him."_

_"There are eight of us. And only one of him."_

_"And the sailor-girl?"_

_"She'll come along...an after-dinner snack."_

_"I hate you all. I hate what we're doing."_

_"Peg, just separate, all right? Just leave."_

_"I can't let you shut me out. I may not be able to reenter. I'm tired."_

_"We all are—that's why we're doing this. To live, and have fun again."_

_"Bertha, we've outlived ourselves. Longer than we deserved."_

_"Speak for yourself, Peg. I'm hungry."_

_"How could we get him back? We don't have the energy to do another Reach."_

_"So we touch some ninny here in the hospital, Sarah, and use them to do a Reach."_

_"No!"_

_"If you haven't figured it out by now, Peg, we're not listening to you."_

_"Bertie, tell Jo to stop being so mean!"_

_"Peg, you've said your piece. If you can suggest a better, more saintly way to find energy, we're listening. ...I didn't think so. So let's see...if we can't do a Reach, what can we do?"_

_"What do we know about them?"_

_"They work for the government investigating...heh...aliens and freaks like us."_

_"Sarah, you goose! I've got it!"_

_"What?"_

_"Listen! We know that the government won't budge a foot unless there are dead bodies strewn all over the place..."_

_"Stupid Louis County cops!"_

_"Not now, Anna—"_

_"They didn't care none about my Bill! He was shot down in cold blood, and what did them nincompoops do? They shows up at my door and says 'Oh, we's sorry, but you's husband was shot i't'head with a piece a buckshot and we don' know who dun it!' And I's jus' s'posed to sit and cry?! I's gonna cry! I's gonna cry bloody murder, tha's wha'!"_

_"Anna, not again, please..."_

_"...I's gonna cry bloody murder and take my own piece o' buckshot 'tils I find that..."_

_"So, Jo, what was your idea?"_

_"This: if we litter this place with dead bodies...and we don't make it obvious how they died...the two of them will come out here to investigate!"_

_"Brilliant! It's so simple!"_

_"...and I's gonna scour the countryside..."_

_"And we can use the bodies' energy to have a little bit of fun until he comes, Bertie."_

_"No...if we want to control him this time, we will need the extra strength. No fun, Jo."_

_"But I want to—"_

_"I can't believe you all are planning to do this."_

_"...an' when I finds that cow pie, I's gonna shoot 'im through 'n' through with my buckshot, 'til he's so full o' holes..."_

_"Oh, stop whining, Peg."_

_"No...no..."_

_"...and then I's gonna end this and go see Bill i't'sky."_

* * *

INTERSTATE 339

ONE MONTH LATER

FRIDAY, 4:20 P.M.

"Scully! Answer answer answer!" Mulder punched the redial button on his cell phone and put it back to his ear. "What are you doing?"

He blared his horn at the snailing driver in front of him. The phone beeped an unremitting busy signal in his ear, and he pulled it away to look at its little display screen. _NOT RESPONDING_ it shone innocently at him. He decided to give the horn another pound for good measure, but the little car ahead of him continued its slow crawl, deaf to all protests. Of course the highway crew would pick today to close off the other two lanes for repaving.

"Oh, c'mon! You're going twenty-five in a forty-mile-an-hour zone! Why does this happen to me? Ah! Finally!"

The turnoff for the last ten-minute stretch of the drive to Quantico crawled up, and as soon as he was free of the little car, he shot off down the exit ramp, ignoring the bright yellow sign demanding a speed limit of twenty-five, and skipped to a stop at the intersection. Quantico Military Base was in a nice area of Virginia; relatively flat, but surrounded by forests. The last ten minutes wouldn't be nearly as stressful as the first forty had been. The drive between D.C. and Quantico was only supposed to be forty minutes, but somehow Fate always dropped a slow car directly in front of him when he was in a hurry.

Mulder put his cell phone back in his coat pocket with a sigh, and glanced down at the folder on the seat next to him as he flew down the road. It felt good to be doing something active again, even if it was just driving fast on quiet road. He'd spent the last month puttering around the office and his apartment, doing dreaded things like cleaning his kitchen and reorganizing the X-Files; things that didn't require a strenuous amount of cognitive activity.

Within hours of Mulder and Scully's time spent with Professor Abanito, Skinner had somehow gotten wind of the results—how, Mulder wasn't sure he wanted to know. Skinner was often a shadowy ally, but Mulder had seen enough of the man to know that he was honorable, however by-the-book he insisted on being. The A.D. respected him and he respected the A.D. They left it at that.

Skinner had immediately pulled Mulder off the BSU case and issued a mandatory leave of absence for a week, until Abanito's follow-up results were in. It was just as well. Mulder had been so exhausted for the day afterward that he'd barely been able to get up to go to the bathroom for a good part of the day.

The added pressure of finding the serial killer was removed three days later. Scully came by his apartment—well, actually, sat on his apartment building's front steps to wait for him to come back from jogging—and told him that the men had been caught when the last victim had managed to call 911 on her cell phone before she passed out. The police followed the call, found her, and captured the men fitting her description two blocks down, developing pictures of her and her daughter in their false electrician's van.

For the next three weeks, not only had Skinner assigned him to desk work and transcribing tedious hours of surveillance tapes, but the paranormal branch of the universe had also decided to lay low for a while—or at least, it didn't come slithering over the office door stop. He couldn't find a single new case to shirk the transcribing for, and had instead spent the hours when he had managed to escaped tape duty reorganizing the X-Files, and writing up ambiguous closing reports to several outstanding cases. Scully was delighted.

One evening, he visited the Lone Gunmen and had been treated to cheese steaks. They spent most of the evening trying to convince him to write a few articles for _The Magic Bullet_ under a pseudonym. He'd then occupied the next afternoon in the basement office writing a little piece on abductions and implants, and emailed it to them, before spending twenty minutes debating whether or not he should call Scully on her way home from Quantico.

Because of his temporary desk-agent status, they had agreed to keep the X-Files on the back burner until Mulder was officially reinstated. She wanted the break anyway, and the Quantico forensics department was only too happy to have her teach a course on the identification of parasitic organisms. She was also temping for a few of the full-time professors, teaching a pathology lab here or there. She had spent most of the past month at the FBI Academy, only stopping by the Bureau every few days to check on things. Although it was a two-hour drive back and forth to Quantico, Mulder never heard her complain.

He wasn't nearly as sanguine; he missed having her around. He knew her routine and he knew that he could call her at almost any time—oh, how sentimental to want to hear her voice, what a sap he was becoming—but it did feel just a bit empty in that dark basement, down there alone. He could imagine his quest for the truth was a high and lonely destiny or some such nonsense, but no amount of romanticizing could remove the pile of unfinished case reports or the thirty hours' worth of completely inane surveillance chatter that Skinner had assigned him to finish transcribing by the end of the week.

He had been reading the Washington Post this morning—to be specific, the sports section and the obituaries—when he had come across a double death a few towns away. The bodies had been found at the Gregson Mental Health Center in Linsenton, with "the cause of death has not yet been determined" tagged at the bottom. He smiled. Right up Scully's alley. After calling the local police and finding out that five people had recently died under unusual circumstances at the Center, Mulder's X-File sense started tingling.

He had gotten faxes of the autopsy and police reports, and worked up a perfect theory to explain the deaths before he tried calling her, but her cell phone was turned off. She was most likely in a class, so he grabbed the reports and took off for Quantico, to find her in person. Now here he was, driving across the state line into Virginia like a giddy teenager, finally able to do something with himself. He felt vaguely like he had left something behind, but the sensation subsided as he pulled into the lot and gathered up the folder, looking forward to working with his partner again.

* * *

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

4:35 P. M.

"Thanks, Shirley. Please hold my calls for a few minutes. I need some time to think."

Skinner put the phone back down on the cradle and sat back in his chair. It had been a tiring day, and it didn't look like it would be ending soon. He pulled off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. The phone rang.

He sighed and picked it up. "Shirley, I thought I just told you to—"

"This is not one of your secretaries, Assistant Director Skinner."

Skinner pressed his lips together. He did not need a call from this black-lunged—

"Mulder has left the building."

"Really."

A long exhalation of breath on the other end.

"Yes."

"Look, I have things to do. If you're not going to—"

"Patience, A.D. Skinner. Patience."

"What do you want?"

"We would like Agent Mulder to be found and kept track of. You, as his supervisory agent, are in charge of doing just that."

"I'm not his babysitter. Why don't you send some of your own flunkies to change his diaper for him?"

"Because both you and he will... _regret_ that if it happens. And so will Agent Scully. I thought it fair that you be offered the chance to deal with him yourself."

Skinner clenched his jaw as he slid his glasses back into place. This cancer-ridden monster presumed to act _generous_. Realizing that he had no real choice, Skinner's fist tightened around the plastic handset.

"Where is he?"

"On his way to Quantico."

* * *

PARASITOLOGY 105

MAHAR 311

4:50 P. M.

"...and so we can classify the common flukeworm as being non-lethal to human biology, though it does induce painful cramping if not removed in its early stages of development." Scully turned to the overhead projector and replaced the slide on it with another from her pile. She heard the door in the back of the room shut, and made a mental note to reprimand the student for tardy behavior. The Academy was not tolerant of those who did not obey the rules. "To reiterate the main points of this lecture..."

_Wait a second. Class is over in five minutes. That's not a tardy student._

Reading off of her slide, she looked towards the back of the room—at a very familiar lanky frame edging his way into an undersized, squeaky desk. He settled in and waved at her. She frowned and went back to her slide.

A desk squeaked.

She continued.

It squeaked again, longer and louder this time.

She felt her neck heating and cursed her Irish complexion. Switching to her next slide, she focused on keeping her voice at an even, measured tone.

It squeaked squeaked squeaked. A few people snickered. One or two glanced around. She cleared her throat, fighting the desire to look up from her slide and send out a venomous glare, and read off a few lines.

_He's not doing it on purpose—he's just trying to get comfortable._

The desk squeeeeeeaked.

Everyone, except for the one or two brown-nosers, twisted to look at the sound. Scully pressed her lips together, caught in the most uncomfortable conflict between grinding her molars and bursting out into very un-professor-like laughter. She settled for a terse "Class dismissed" instead.

She busied herself with rearranging the slides and gathering up her things as the students left the room, darting glances between her and the man still sitting in the back. There were a few whispers and a giggle or two as they passed her desk, and she pressed her lips together, ignoring every last one of them. When they had all walked out, she finally looked across the empty rows of desks at her partner's expressionless face. He was determined to look innocent. She sighed and slung her bag over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow at him.

He raised an eyebrow back. That was it. She couldn't keep frowning any longer, and smiled down at the floor for a second, reprimanding herself for her inability to maintain her front against him. Stepping off the dais, she made her way up the aisle towards his chair, and he edged himself out of the cramped seating to join her as she walked out.

"I finally found one, Scully! Linsenton—it's only thirty minutes from here, back towards D.C.—five deaths of unknown causes and the murder of a night janitor only a month ago!"

"Nice to see you, too," she replied in a dry tone. "And it was about a month and a half, Mulder. Those deaths aren't unexplained—they all died as a result of a severe seizure."

"Five deaths in three weeks? That's a little outside of the expected probabilities, even for a mental hospital. And it wasn't the patients that died, Scully. It was two doctors, an orderly, and a nurse!"

"I know, Mulder. I've been following this case for two weeks now. I have the first three autopsy reports in my bag."

Mulder took a millisecond to be stunned speechless, and then he recovered.

"You have? You do?"

"Yes," Scully answered patiently, rummaging around in her bag for her car keys. "Bob Carlisle, the Linsenton examiner, sent them over to me when he found out I was temping here. He thought I could do more with the Quantico labs than he could do with his equipment. I did a re-analysis of what he'd found, and concluded that an electrical shock sent an excessive current into the brain and triggered a fatal seizure, basically backing up his tentative report. An electrician had been called in to certify that the building's wiring was still up to code, so I told the Linsenton PD to look for foul play among another of the staff, or an illegal use of the Center's electrotherapy equipment."

"Wait a second. How do you know the Linsenton medical examiner?"

"We were classmates here," Scully replied, pulling out her keys when she emerged from the Mahar auditorium. She stopped at the edge of the parking lot and reached up to shade her eyes from the late-afternoon sun. Squinting, she scanned the lot, trying to remember where she'd parked her car that morning.

"And you think five people died in the Gregson Mental Health Center in three weeks because they were playing with shock plugs?"

"Well, think about it, Mulder. The first two were found together, as were the last two. Maybe they were planning to find some excitement, and the equipment backfired." She gave up with the visual search and pointed her car alarm key chain at a random group of cars. Nothing beeped back at her.

"That doesn't account for the orderly in the middle who was by himself, nor the fact that if the first pair died, it's rather unlikely that the second would have tried the same thing only two weeks later. Or the fact that none of the bodies were found near the electrotherapy rooms."

She pointed the keychain at another group and didn't respond to his statements, although she shot him a grim smile. She was enjoying the way he immediately shot the same holes in her theory that she had. Now it was his turn to put out some wild idea, and she would return the favor. She pointed the keychain at another spot and sighed in frustration.

"I think it may have something to do with that night janitor who was killed several weeks ago," Mulder pressed on, almost bouncing beside her in his excitement. "Didn't you mention something about a nurse going crazy and murdering him? Perhaps his spirit is seeking retribution. All five of the bodies were found within fifty feet of the broom closet he was stuffed in—Scully, what are you doing?"

Scully finished turning around in a slow circle, having pointed her keychain in every possible direction, and growled in aggravation.

"I'm trying to find my car!"

"Why didn't you ask me? It's two cars down from where I parked mine." Mulder gave her an odd look and pointed past her shoulder. The joys of being over six feet tall. She sighed, cursing the fact that even with the sturdiest two-inch heels she could find, she still felt like a Zacchaeus.

Following where he pointed, she struck off in that general direction—ahh! There! She hurried over and aimed her keychain at the car and the front lights blinked at her. She had set the alarm to blink, not beep. She sighed.

"Thanks," she called, unlocking her door and looking over the roof of the car at her partner, two cars down.

"Hey, Scully—follow me! We can grab a cheeseburger on the way!"

"Mulder, why do you always assume that I have nothing to do but follow you around on Friday nights?"

"Well, do you have something else to do?"

"That's not the point."

"What is the point?"

"All right, it's that maybe I do have something else to do on Friday nights, and that my life doesn't revolve around you."

"I'm not asking you to revolve around me, Scully. I'm just asking you to follow me to Linsenton. Do you or don't you have a date for tonight?"

Scully was silent for a long moment. Mulder alternated between thinking she was just considering his request, and having a small heart attack at the thought that she did have a date. Well, not a heart attack, exactly. More like a moment of unpleasant images of being alone in a mental hospital in the middle of the night, while his partner was out enjoying another man's company. The sharp pang faded a moment later.

"No..." she sighed, almost inaudibly, "...but a long, luxurious bubble bath would be nice."

"Then what are you complaining about?"

An angry look passed over her face for a moment, and then it was replaced by tired resignation. She turned away and got into her car. Mulder got into his and pulled out a few seconds later, and she moved out of the lot, following him. To find and put to rest the disembodied spirit of an old mental-health center janitor that was residing within a fifty-foot radius of a broom closet.

She sighed.

* * *

X-FILES BASEMENT OFFICE

5:00 P.M.

Skinner unlocked the door and pushed it open slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. He flipped the light switch, but it didn't seem to affect much. Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him. This small, unassuming room... So much hinged on this dark corner of the basement. He quickly moved over to the desk and began glancing at folders. One article lay there, partially covered by another folder, and he reached down to pick it up. It was an obituary, dated two days ago, at the Gregson Mental Health Center in Linsenton, Maryland.

Cold fingers raced up his spine, and he crushed the small piece of newspaper in his fist, slamming his hand down on the desk. There was something wrong, terribly wrong, with that mental health center, something that left him deeply unsettled, and he was pressed by an overwhelming sense of urgency. Scully's report had left a chill in the pit of his stomach, although he couldn't explain why. Her words had seemed oddly dispassionate and dismissive, almost unlike her in their lack of curiosity.

But he was accustomed to finishing X-Files reports feeling discomfited, so, unable to explain his hunch that there was something important missing, he had pushed it out of his mind. But here was the case again, the prickling of fear and danger was back in full force, and it was more insistent than before.

He was frustrated by his inability to explain the rush of premonition, so he slammed his fist back down on the desktop again and swore.

They had gone back.

* * *

_"They're coming! They're coming!"_

_"Everyone prepare!"_

_"This will end..."_

 


	7. Survival... With Benefits

_7_

GREGSON MENTAL HEALTH CENTER

SECOND FLOOR HALL

5:26 P.M.

"Somehow, I don't think it's a ghost living in a broom closet, Mulder."

"I think...I may have to agree with you, Scully."

The hall was deserted. Frowning, Scully pushed the first door to her right open and looked inside. Although there were no doctors, nurses, or patients anywhere in the long hallway, this room looked normal enough; two people sleeping in their beds, classical music wafting from a small speaker in the corner. She went back out. Mulder had moved down to the next room, and was peering in there. He turned around and shook his head. No doctors. No nurses. Everything downstairs had seemed normal, but the moment they had stepped on to this floor, there was something _not right._

Scully walked over to stand next to him, and they looked around, wondering. A soft yellowish glow came from one of the rooms farther down.

_Hmm, that's interesting. I wonder what's causing that..._

She started walking towards the glow, Mulder close behind her. She felt his hand rest on her arm.

"I don't like this," he said.

She felt suddenly frustrated with him, and shook her arm free. He was the one who had insisted that they come out here. They had come this far, they might as well finish it. He was such a hypocrite sometimes, acting like he knew what to do, plowing in blindly, and then wimping out when it actually counted.

_What? Mulder has never 'wimped out'—at anything. What are you—_

The warm, yellow glow. She looked down and saw her hand pushing the door open before her. It opened into a welcoming, brownish-golden room with a thick plush rug and filmy curtains waving from the windows. So comforting. She could feel Mulder's hand on her back, warm, a reminder of his presence. At once, she both wanted him to leave her alone in this place and to stay behind her. Anger welled up in her at her own indecision. But why was she angry at herself? He was the one that had wronged her!

His hand fell away.

Abruptly, the room shifted—it was white, hospital-clean, only a table and a group of old women in wheelchairs sitting around. Scully jumped back, startled at the sudden change around her. She tried to scramble backwards, but stumbled over a pile on the floor—a body!

" _Mulder!_ "

He was crumpled on the floor next to her feet, head lolled back, eyes vacant, his face white and expressionless. She dropped to her knees next to him, a lump tightening in her throat. Her hands shaking uncontrollably, she pressed her fingers to his neck, hoping desperately for a pulse—there! There it was, but thready and faint.

"Mulder, Mulder...oh no..."

She tried to find any recognition behind his eyes, but they were vacant and unseeing. To reassure herself, she felt for his pulse again, and found it.

_He's still alive! He's alive. Breathe._

But Mulder was catatonic and Scully shuddered, trying to draw in a full lungful of air. The room wobbled and she grabbed at Mulder's prone form to steady herself, her thoughts scrambled. He was so still and unresponsive! Panic rose in her chest. Hands trembling, she loosened his tie, unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt, tried to think—

"Mulder...c'mon, listen to me..."

_What are doing? You're a trained medical doctor! Do something!_

"I'm trying, I'm trying, don't yell at me!"

Scully stopped, hands frozen. She had just yelled at herself. What was it with this place? She was in a mental hospital...

_Mulder, wake up! I can't understand where you went!_

Bits and fragments of half-formed thoughts raced through her mind. She struggled to grab onto one of them, to think of _something_ coherent. Images of Mulder's slack face kept looming closer and closer to her, until she could feel the warmth of his skin against her cheek for barely a moment— _what?_ —and then she was caught up in swirling darkness.

* * *

She struggled desperately, trying to throw off the arms restraining her—thin arms. She heard a pained grunt behind her as she broke free, which elicited a gasped cry from the darkness. She was about to bolt in panic, but something about the plea in that pained voice made her turn around to see who was there.

An old woman stood before her, her black eyes wide.

"Thank you for not running—I don't have the energy to go after you. The little that I have left in this tired mind is for him."

"Him who?" Scully asked, confused. Everything was spinning around her, dark and incoherent, but the swirling seemed to be settling into stillness. Emptiness and void.

"Your partner," the woman said, reaching out to hold Scully's forearms with her bony hands. "He needs us."

" _No! Scu—!_ "

An agonized cry was cut off behind her, and Scully spun around, heart pounding. That voice, weak and desperate, tore at her chest. It had cried from within a swirling gray mass, the edges curling and roiling with hateful intent. Fear spiked in her when she tried to concentrate on the mass, and she backed away, only to find herself once again held in the thin arms. She twisted around, slightly unsteady on her feet, and unable to understand why there was so much emptiness and black around her. All that she could feel and see was this old woman—where was she? Who was this woman?

"My name is Peg, you're still here."

"You answered my... We've got to find him and help him! There's something wrong! Where am I? What is that, that horrible...thing over there?" Scully babbled, panic rising in her throat.

Peg's face tightened up, her dark, eerie eyes pinning Scully, holding her still.

"Listen to me!" Peg spoke in a hoarse whisper, her bony fingers tightening around Scully's wrists. "We have to stop them from hurting him! He doesn't have much time to fight, if he even can fight!"

"Yes, yes," Scully mumbled. Peg's hands came up to cup her face on both sides. The pressure hurt and Scully gasped and opened her eyes wide.

"Listen!"

"I can hear you, I'm listening." Scully felt like crying; she felt anger, fear, pain, anguish, hurt...

A surge of strength rose up in her chest, and she suddenly saw half a dozen wizened faces looming over her, their mouths pulled back in horrifying, hungry smiles, their eyes burning intently, painfully piercing into her skull. She cried out in primal fear. The faces came back in aching clarity, gray wisps tightening around his/her chest and throat and he/she lashed out in horrible desperation. The faces changed, their dry lips moving, the death-like smiles gone. Then a gray wisp engulfed his/her head in burning fire and she instinctively pulled out—

A horrible scream rent the blackness.

Scully whipped her eyes open, feeling her partner's cry tearing through her as she withdrew from him. The nightmare sliced through her whole body, leaving only reddened wounds covering her skin, lighting it on fire. Her whole being trembled uncontrollably.

"Don't give in! Fight this! Listen to me!" A hoarse whisper in her ear. The old woman's face cleared before her.

"What..."

"They want to drain his mind from his body—that is how they find their mental energy, by wrenching it from others. I vow this will be the last time. He is untrained and he is fighting back instinctively, but they have trapped him. He is weakening. You can feel it, no?"

Scully nodded in shock, the sting of tears burning at the edges of her eyes. Surrounded by that horrifying vision, that suffocating mist—

"Shhh! Don't think about them. They will know you're present if you do. Close your eyes, I must explain it to you..."

Shaking, Scully closed her eyes and found herself swept away—she opened her eyes to see a warm summer afternoon in front of a white house, the grass green and thick under her brown-and-white saddle shoes.

_Saddle shoes?_

_Shh, just see what I show you._

Warm breezes wafted over her face, and she saw a group of girls standing around a small bird lying on the grass. Its wing was broken and it chittered pitifully, limping, turning in a confused circle on the grass. She knelt down and touched the tiny creature, ran her fingers along the silky feathers of its back, smoothing them down. The wing was sore: it was broken right there. If only that piece of white would straighten out with this one, here— _It was straightening out! The blood was clearing away—!_

Scully's mouth dropped open at the little bird's movements. The wing was waving gently before her astonished face, and she watched the bird test it. Then it pushed its tiny feet against her fingers and leapt into the air, flying up into a clear blue sky. She had healed it with her thoughts!

Images raced past through her vision, of the sisters gathering around Anna after she fell from the tree. Her head was pulled at a horrible angle, and some knowledge told her that her sister was dead. She watched as they all crouched down around the body, and after a few seconds, Anna opened her eyes, her neck straightening. Only the light was gone in her eyes, and it could never be put back.

Anna sang songs in the night.

She and her sisters aged, stood wind-whipped in a thunderstorm they had called up, the dark clouds swirling over their heads. She felt a twinge of fear, but pressed on, so awed by the power that they wielded.

Eight women, living alone, haunted by waking nightmares that they fought off together. Their first Reach, when an unsuspecting traveler came in to ask for help with his automobile. They were all exhausted, aged beyond their physical years. They took strength from him, suddenly able to get more energy! They put him back in his car and he drove into a tree—

Deep sadness welled up in her chest, and then a flurry of images raced by. Of being put in a hospital room by the county sheriff and his young men. Of aging together here, building a web of minds so strong they could meld into one persona and extend their combined powers to explore the forbidden world beyond them. Of watching a young woman—herself!—walk from her car up to an apartment and let herself in—the three boys down the hall—sitting still, vacant—a dark, shadowed man trying to shake her—the back of her hand hitting something warm and hearing a pained cry in the darkness—the dark man is back, but it is light now, he wants her—she can go if he sacrifices part of himself—she walks past him—he arches and collapses against a white wall—

Scully forced her eyes open.

"Now you see what happened?" Peg asked.

"Yes," Scully gasped, trying to breathe through the vise that gripped her chest. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She wanted only to escape this nightmare, to run back to her childhood and play chalk games on the sidewalk with Missy—

"Listen! I and my sisters have lived longer than was ever right. The horror that we have become must be destroyed. We must do this—" An image of a ring of links suddenly appeared, along with the knowledge that she had to throw herself into the center, to cover the weakened body lying there, struggling faintly against the heaviness closing in on him. In the image, one link suddenly snapped, pulling away from the group, and then there was only blackness, and a feeling of finality.

"Our bodies withered away to support the drains of our minds. We are paralyzed and dying. If I break my link in the ring, and they are unprepared, our Web will be destroyed, and all of our bodies will be brought down with it. You understand?"

Scully blinked. So many sensations were racing through her mind at once, but she knew with an unshakable certainty that she was to cover that form struggling weakly in the center. Mulder. She could feel his awareness just at the edges of her existence, fading, a single repeated cry whispered through the blackness surrounding them both.

_Scully...Scully..._

Thickness welled up in the back of her throat and she nodded.

"Thank you," she whispered to Peg, seeing herself reflected in the blackness of the old woman's eyes.

" _Go!_ "

She was pushed towards the roiling gray mass and she braced herself, diving in with all her strength. The cold, gray wisps slid over her and then she fell, spreading herself out in as wide a covering as she could. She felt a warmth beneath her, and she wrapped her herself tightly around it with only a primal, instinctual move. Roars of rage rose up around her—

" _IT ENDS NOW!_ " A hoarse voice screamed, and then _agony.._.

—but she felt pain for only a brief moment, and then energy swirled madly around her, winds sweeping, spinning, whipping over her and under her, abrasive as it scratched her being. There was a shiver beneath her—

It was quiet.

* * *

The warmth beneath her moved and groaned.

_Wha...?_

Scully reflexively inhaled. Her head was suddenly filled with the strong scent of aftershave, sweat, and something else she could only think of as...Mulder. Her eyes flew open and she tried to jerk back, but her muscles wouldn't respond quickly enough, and she ended up jerking herself up about six inches and then flopping back down to drop her head on something warm and moving.

Her body started reporting back to her that it was there, and that it felt like it had just survived a tornado. It also starting reporting exactly _what_ she was lying on top of. She was sprawled across her partner's long body, her face practically buried in his neck and her legs spread out in some uncomfortable fashion on the hard concrete floor.

_Uhh, what happened to the rug?_

_Forget the rug, what happened to_ me _?_

Another groan rumbled near her head and she tried to move up again, but a spasm shot up her neck. She immediately dropped back down again and grabbed the muscles, tears springing to her eyes and a whimper escaping her lips. She felt a warm hand close over hers, and Mulder's worried voice, hoarse and dry.

"Scully? What's the matter?" He coughed, his chest shuddering under her cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth as her neck spasmed again.

"Muscle cramp," she tried to say, but it came out in a dry whisper. Sparks were flying through her eyes at the sudden pain shooting up and down her neck. She felt her hand be pushed away from her throat, and then fingers began kneading the tense muscles.

"Ow!"

"Sorry..." Mulder sounded tired, but his fingers continued to firmly knead her neck. The discomfort started to fade and she took in a deep breath, letting out an unconscious sigh.

The floor vibrated and she heard pounding from nearby, coming closer. Suddenly the door to the room flew open, swinging around until it hit the wall with a crash. She jumped, heard a bellow, and opened her eyes. A huge figure bent over her head, and it cursed.

"What are you _doing?_ " the figure hissed, sounding like a very angry Skinner.

Scully immediately wrenched herself up to a sitting position as Mulder's hand fell away from her neck. Heat crept into her cheeks, and her fatigued muscles trembled as she forced herself to remain upright.

"Sir..." she began, then winced and clapped a hand to her neck.

Skinner growled and, reaching down, grabbed a handful of Mulder's loosened shirt and tie. He hauled Mulder to his feet, his face reddening with anger. "Agent Mulder, what the _hell_ are you—?"

Skinner broke off when he realized that Mulder was holding onto his arm for support. Mulder's eyes were closed and his head drooped. Skinner took in the younger man's weary posture for a long moment, then turned to look at Scully, who was slowly pulling herself to her feet. He noted the dark circles under her eyes before taking a closer look at Mulder.

"Sir...please...Agent Mulder is not...well," Scully protested.

Skinner loosened his grip on the younger man's shirt, and Mulder released his breath. When he looked up, his eyes were red-rimmed. He soon let them fall closed again. Skinner turned his gaze back to Scully, silently asking her to explain what happened.

She gave a slight shake of her head and looked away, a mixture of confusion and exhaustion in her expression.

Skinner took in the whole room, with its bare white walls and its curtainless, austere windows. There were eight women scattered about in wheelchairs, but all were motionless, not even their chests rising faintly.

He drew in a sharp breath and frowned. "They're all dead."

"Yes, sir," Scully answered dully. He turned his eyes on her, then looked at Mulder.

"Either of you need a physician?"

Mulder let out a kind of pained sigh, his lips curving up in a grimace.

"No sir, just rest," Scully replied. She took in a deep breath and let it out.

The three of them stood still for a long moment, and then Skinner waved his arm towards the door, beckoning. Two members of his SWAT team entered and, with grim nods, allowed the doctors and nurses to come into the room. Soon, this whole scene would be taped off and the dead bodies carried out. Skinner flexed his jaw, then met Scully's eyes.

"Are you safe to drive?"

" _I_ am, sir," she answered.

"Then go," he said. "Get out of here. Take the weekend off, both of you. And I expect a full report on Monday morning."

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Scully put her hand on Mulder's arm, and with brief nods, they turned away from Skinner, moving slowly as they walked out.

* * *

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

7:00 A.M.

Skinner unlocked the door to his office and was about to step into the room when his foot caught on a piece of paper on the floor—a manila envelope. He stooped down and picked it up. Frowning, he wondered who had to resort to sliding manila envelopes under his door to get messages to him. He walked in, dropped the envelope on his desk, and shrugged off his coat. Shirley and her coterie of assistants were not in yet, and there was no return address—or sending address, for that matter—on the package. He had an unpleasant suspicion of who had left it, though.

Dropping into his chair, he swiveled around to look out the window behind him. He had a nice, well-lit city office, and now mysterious, shadowy organizations were slipping ultra-secret envelopes under his door. He smirked as he looked out over the D.C. morning skyline. Never once in his childhood had he imagined being in a position like this. He had always figured he would go into his father's barbershop business after he got over his teenage rebellion phase in the Army. That it would always be there to fall back on.

Going to Vietnam had changed all of that. It had changed a lot of things. He'd come back home to find that his father had sold the shop and saved a small nest egg just to retire on. And there Walter Skinner was: a vet, unemployed, generally disillusioned with life, and angry at his having lost what he considered his future. The military had stepped in and conveniently offered him a low-level, low-paying position. Now, here he was, twenty years later, sitting in a high-level office with a window that took up almost an entire wall, receiving ultra-secret envelopes from people unable to figure out the interoffice postal system.

He chuckled, then sighed. Oh well, he might as well resign himself to finding out what was so important it couldn't be given to him in at least a borderline-normal way. Like maybe a top-secret government courier with a gun and a long black coat.

He was supposed to be meeting with Mulder and Scully in an hour. Shirley would arrive in only a few minutes, her stack of memos typed and ready for his approval. Everyone would expect his authoritative demeanor, his serious attitude, not him griping about mysterious men in black or postally-challenged spies.

He swiveled around and picked up the envelope, frowning. Oh well, top-secret government conspiracies must be—

Skinner blinked as the contents slid out onto his desk. _This_ was so important it had to be anonymously shoved under his door?

Never mind 'postally-challenged'. 'Incredibly bored' might be a better description.

* * *

8:00 A. M.

"Agents Mulder and Scully. He's expecting you."

"We know," Scully said impatiently.

Shirley darted her a raised eyebrow and pressed the speaker button to Skinner's office phone. "They're here, sir."

"Send them in."

Scully twisted the knob, pushed the door open, walked across the room, and slid into the farthest chair, Mulder close behind her. She was feeling rather better this morning, though she couldn't pin down quite why. Maybe it was the fact that Mulder had woken her up that morning by waving a steaming mug of coffee under her nose. Yes, that must be it, the caffeine.

 _It's not because it was_ him _waving the coffee, was it?_

No, of course not...although that was nice, too.

_'Nice'? Liar!_

Scully gritted her teeth and tried to focus on what she'd be telling A.D. Skinner.

She'd struggled home last night with Mulder absolutely out cold in the seat next to her, so she'd once again ruled out the idea of dropping him off at his apartment alone. She'd somehow managed to sleepwalk him up to her apartment and drape him across her couch. After a oddly clear image of tucking a blanket under his chin, things just started to get fuzzy. The next thing she remembered clearly was waking up in bed the next morning, fully clothed, the blanket up to her neck and a curious weight tilting the bed off to a crazy angle, making her roll down into the dip.

It turned out to be Mulder, who was slowly waving something in front of her face. She had groaned and rolled back over—or tried to, anyway. Unfortunately, he was creating a rather significant depression in the mattress, and her groggy attempts at getting away just resulted in tangling up the sheets and getting a little bit of the Folger's Coffee theme music sung to her, along with some very strong caffeinated vapors percolating into her sleep-fuzzed brain.

So now here she was, sitting in Skinner's office, thinking about Mulder waving mugs under her nose. Oh well, she supposed there were worse things to be thinking about...

Skinner cleared his throat, and Scully recollected herself.

"Good morning, sir," she said, sitting up straighter. "What was it you wanted to speak to us about?"

"Have you filed a report yet on the situation that occurred yesterday afternoon?"

"No, actually, sir, we both went to bed early," Mulder replied, slouching a bit.

An odd look crossed Skinner's face.

"I see," he replied, pointlessly moving some papers around on his desk. His fingers alighted on an unmarked manila folder and stopped. He sat staring at it for several long seconds, then looked up at Scully. She noticed that he looked rather more red than usual.

"Are you all right, sir?" she asked.

Skinner blinked. "Oh yes, quite." He cleared his throat again.

"If the report is that important," Scully offered, "we can finish it by noon and give it to your secretary, sir."

"Yes, yes, that would be...good."

Scully frowned. She was starting to feel a bit odd with Skinner shifting in his seat in front of them. The silence went on for about half a minute, and she exchanged glances with Mulder, who only frowned at her and shook his head slightly in confusion. She opened her mouth to ask again if Skinner _really_ was all right, but he suddenly cleared his throat and, with a stiff gesture towards them, pushed the manila envelope to the edge of his desk.

Frowning, Mulder leaned forward and picked up the envelope. He shook it gently, letting the contents spread themselves out on the desk.

What spilled out were black-and-white photographs. After a peripheral glance at one of them, Mulder suddenly sat closer and frowned, his mouth dropping open slightly. Scully slid forward in her seat and picked up a photo, nearly losing her grip on it when she saw what it held.

It was her and Mulder, sleeping. On the same bed. She swallowed hard and dragged her eyes up to Skinner's. The Assistant Director was eyeing her, expressionless.

Mulder sat back in his chair, still holding one picture, and ran a hand down his face, rubbed his chin. Skinner turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised slightly. Scully sat back and cleared her throat, looking everywhere but at her boss.

Skinner was amused by his two agents, who looked for all the world like two teenagers caught behind the Dairy Mart.

Scully swallowed. "Well, sir, we can explain—"

"You don't have to. I know what I see here."

"Sir—" Mulder and Scully started, simultaneously sitting forward, but Skinner held up his hand for silence.

"You misunderstand me. I know what I see here: nothing. It's clear that this picture was taken a month ago, after Mulder's...encounter...in his apartment. You're both fully clothed and there's three feet of empty space between you. It is obvious that Agent Scully was simply monitoring your sleep that night, Agent Mulder. What does _he_ think he can achieve with these pictures, do you think? This is ridiculous and a waste of my time!"

Mulder and Scully exchanged looks that were so confused that Skinner felt his usual facade beginning to crumble dangerously. He whipped his hand over to one of his desk drawers for a tissue, then wiped his nose with as much composure as he could muster. The looks on their faces were priceless. He pushed his nose into the tissue and continued battling the desire to start guffawing like a donkey, thereupon losing all their respect in one fell swoop.

Bewildered, Mulder looked at Scully and she looked back at him. Skinner was blowing his nose into a tissue that they have never before seen him pull out of his desk, and he was also making a strange sort of snuffling sound. They didn't know quite how to respond to his outburst a moment ago. This whole affair felt rather odd.

Skinner's eyes were tearing up. He swallowed down the rising hysteria in his throat and began shoving the photos back into the manila envelope. Mulder and Scully quickly returned each of the ones they were holding, and he stuffed them into the envelope as well. He held the sealed envelope out to Scully, who stood up and hesitantly took it. She held it as if it were a dirty pair of socks. Or underwear.

Skinner blew his nose rather loudly. Choke-snuffled. Mulder abruptly stood up and continued staring at him. This was torture. Skinner hacked a bit and pulled out another tissue, trying to unobtrusively wipe his eyes at the same time. This was sending him into paroxysms of snuffling.

"Uh, sir...what are we expected to do with this?" Scully asked, staring at him.

"Oh, I don't know," he replied, swiping at his nose. "I don't care. Just get them out of my office. Tack them up on one of those overcrowded walls of yours—next to one of your gruesome slime-sucking photos. It would be a nice backdrop."

"Sir?!" Scully's mouth dropped open slightly.

Skinner realized he'd just said something very un-Assistant-Director-of-the-FBI-like.

"Get...get out. Dismissed," he managed to work out, in between snuffs.

Scully started for the door immediately, but Mulder walked out at a more leisurely pace. When he reached the office door that Scully had left wide open in her wake, he stopped and turned around.

"What do you think of the caption 'After our alien implants, clothes were not an obstacle'?"

A muffled shriek erupted somewhere from Scully's probable location.

"Just...get...blinds...Mulder," Skinner managed to gasp out.

The door slipped shut, leaving Skinner alone in his office to explode.

**Author's Note:**

> I am very grateful to my two fantastic beta readers, **Taffer** and **brianna-xox** , for their excellent critiques. **Taffer** was the one who prompted me to pick this story back up after 19 years, give it a thorough edit, and break it into chapters, so you have her to thank for its readability. And both she and **brianna-xox** caught so many embarrassing errors! They make me look like a much better writer than I actually am. :) I am also grateful to the anonymous Guest reviewer who caught two factual errors.
> 
> Thanks go to God for the vivid dream that inspired this story. I'm also grateful to my sister, Jessica, who was an invaluable source of information, patience, and Psalm 40; my parents, who put up with me sequestering myself in a little closet with my computer for hours on end; my friend Jen, for keeping my "to have"s and "to be"s in mind; and finally to **R.J. Anderson** , for reminding me to focus on the Lord and inspiring me to write a meaningful Mulder/Scully relationship story. She gave me great beta feedback on this story in its original incarnation.
> 
> Thank you, dear reader, for giving this story your time. I welcome all feedback, including criticism and suggestions for improvement, so don't hesitate to speak up!
> 
> —
> 
> I do not own any _The X-Files_ properties, nor do I make any money from the writing of this story.
> 
> Characters and situations, created by Chris Carter, are taken from _The X-Files Seasons 1-5 (1993-1997) ©Ten-Thirteen Productions_ , _20th Television_ , and _20th Century Fox Television_.
> 
> —
> 
> This story is released under the GPL/CC BY: verbatim copying and distribution of this entire work are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided attribution is preserved.


End file.
